
Qass_EL c_c _cl 
Book /% 51 



SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES 

ON THE THRESHOLD 

OF EIGHTY 




v^ 




o 



ih 



4/ 



Speeches and Addresses 

on the threshold 
of eighty 



BY 

CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 



■ 



-Us-/ 






CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Speech at the Twentieth Annual Dinner of the Montauk Club 
of Brooklyn, in Celebration of Mr. Depew's Seventy-seventh 
Birthday, April 29, 1911 9 

Speech at the Twenty-first Annual Dinner of the Montauk 
Club of Brooklyn, in Celebration of Mr. Depew's Seventy- 
eighth Birthday, May 4, 1912 28 

Speech at the Twenty-second Annual Dinner of the Montauk 
Club of Brooklyn, "m Celebration of Mr. Depew's Seventy- 
ninth Birthday, April 26, 1913 48 

Speech at the Annual Dinner of the University Club, Wash- ^ 
ington, D. C, February 27, 1911 6S 

Speech at the Dinner given to Mr. Depew by the Republican 
Club of the City of New York, April 7, 1911 76 

Speech at the Dinner given to Ex-Presidents of the Union 
League Club of the City of New York, April 8, 1911 . . 91 

Speech at a Masonic Celebration at the Manhattan Opera 
House, New York, April 13, 1911 98 

Speech at the Luncheon of the New York State Society of 
the Cincinnati and their Guests from other State Societies, 
Metropolitan Club, New York, May 10, 1911 104 

Speech at the Dinner given by the Pilgrims' Society of New 
York to Hon. John Hays Hammond, Special Ambassador 
to the Coronation of King George V, Plaza Hotel, New 
York, May 24, 1911 Ill 

Speech at the Pilgrims' Coronation Dinner, Savoy Hotel, 
London, in Honor of the Special Ambassador to the Coro- 
nation, Hon. John Hays Hammond, June 28, 1911 .. .. 117 

Speech at the Banquet given by the American Chamber of 
Commerce of Paris, France, July 4, 1911 125 

Address at the Meeting in Memory of Cornelius N. Bliss, 
held bv the Republican Club of the City of New York, 
November 5, 1911 134 

[5] 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Speech at the Dinner of the New England Society of New 
York, December 22, 1911, in Response to the Toast: "The 
Puritan Survival" 143 

Speech at the Annual Dinner of the Society of the Genesee, 
Hotel Knickerbocker, New York City, January 20, 1912 . . 157 

Speech at the Celebration of the Treaty of Alliance between 
France and the United States, made February 6, 1778, being 
the First Treaty Ever Made by the United States, Feb- 
ruary 6, 1912, at" Cafe Martin, New York City 167 

Speech at the Twenty-sixth Annual Lincoln Dinner of the 
Republican Club of the Citv of New York, Waldorf- 
Astoria, February 12, 1912 .. 178 

Speech at the Celebration by the New York State Society of 
the Cincinnati of the One Hundred and Eightieth Birth- 
day of George Washington, Waldorf-Astoria, February 22, 
1912 190 

Speech at the Dinner given by the United Swedish Societies 
and the John Ericsson Memorial Association, March 9, 
1912, at the Park Avenue Hotel, New York City, in Cele- 
bration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Battle between 
Monitor and Merrimac . . . . - 197 

Speech at the Dinner given by the Lotos Club of New York 
to Justice Mahlon Pitne3% of the United States Supreme 
Court, May 2, 1912 208 

Speech at the Celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the 
Entrance upon the Ministry of Rev. Henry A. Brann, D.D., 
Lexington Avenue Opera House, New York City, May 29, 
1912 217 

Speech at the Fourth of July Celebration of the American 
Society of London, England, July 4, 1912 225 

Speech at the Banquet Celebrating the One Hundred and 
Forty-fourth Anniversary of the New York Chamber of +" 
Commerce, Waldorf-Astoria, November 21, 1912 .. .. 237 

Address at the Meeting in Memory of Vice President James 
S. Sherman, held by the Republican Club of New York, 
November 24, 1912 246 

Speech at the Luncheon of the New York State Society of 
the Cincinnati, Metropolitan Club, New York City, No- 
vember 25, 1912, in Celebration of the Evacuation of New 
York by the British Army, November 25, 1783 259 

Speech on the Occasion of the Presentation of the Grand 
Jewel of the 33° to Mr. Depew at the Masonic Hall, New 
York City, December 20, 1912 269 

[6] 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Speech at the Pilgrims Society Luncheon to the Delegates 
from England, Canada and Australia to Arrange for Cele- 
brating One Hundred Years of Peace among English- 
speaking Peoples, Waldorf-Astoria, New York City, May 
5, 1913 274 

Address at the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Formation 
of the Village of Ossining, State of New York, October 13, 
1913 280 

Speech at the Dinner given by the Lotus Club of New York 
to His Serene Highness Prince Albert of Monaco, October 
25, 1913 .. ..301 

Speech at the Dinner given by the Lotus Club of New York 
to Howard Elliott, Chairman of the New York and New 
Haven Railroad Company, December 13, 1913 309 

Speech at the Annual Dinner of the St. Nicholas Society of 
New York at Delmonico's, December 6, 1913 319 

Speech at the Dinner given to William C. Brown by his 
Official Associates, University Club, New York City, De- 
cember 29, 1913 329 

An Appreciation of the Late Judge Henry E. Howland, Con- 
tributed to Bench and Bar, December, 1913 338 

Speech at the Presentation of the Tragedy Andromaque by 
Racine, Harris Theatre, New York City, by the French 
Dramatic Society, February 4, 1914 342 

Speech at the Luncheon of the Pilgrims Society of the United 
States to the Right Honorable, the Earl of Kintore, Waldorf- 
Astoria, New York, February 9, 1914 347 

Speech at the Luncheon given to General Thomas L. James 
on his Eighty-third Birthday, Union League Club, New 
York City, March 29, 1914 352 



[7] 



Speech at the Twentieth Annual Dinner given 
by the Montauk Club of Brooklyn in Cele- 
bration of Mr. Depew's Seventy-Seventh Birth- 
day, April 29, 1911. 

(Mr. Depew's birthday is April 23, but club conditions have 
made change of dates necessary.) 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: 

It is very interesting that the twentieth succes- 
sive dinner which you have given me on my birth- 
day should coincide with this club coming of age. 
Twenty-one years of club life to those who have 
been members from the beginning is always full of 
charm. The club is the nearest association to the 
family possible without domestic ties. A man who 
has a sympathetic disposition and loves to mingle 
with his fellowmen upon a basis more intimate than 
is afforded in business will have among the living, 
and, in memory, those who have passed away, an 
invaluable asset of choicest friendships. In no place 
as in the club does human nature reveal itself at 
its best and at its worst. Members become natural 
with each other and their selfishness or their good 
fellowship increases with the years. 

I recall those who were present at that first birth- 
day celebration, and each one of them since has 
had distinctive features. It has differed from all 
other affairs of the kind because of its publicity 
and its freedom of discussion. The influence of 
words uttered here or revelations made here have 
at times reached far beyond the limits of this city. 
But these celebrations have also had every char- 

[9] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

acteristic of the family birthday when the recipient 
is made happy because all present rejoice in the 
anniversary, hope for its indefinite recurrence and 
each of them can feel and sing "He is a jolly good 
fellow, which nobody will deny." 

One of the most interesting of these anniversaries 
was given me the year I entered the Senate, and 
now we are here the year that I retire. Twelve 
years in that great deliberative body is wonderfully 
educational as well as enjoyable. It has often been 
called a club and said to be the best in the United 
States. In a sense, it is. Within its walls, except 
in debate upon political questions, there are no 
divisions of parties. Republicans and Democrats, 
Stand-patters and Progressives, mingle on the floor, 
in committee rooms, in the cloak room and the 
dining room, with a daily familiarity which speedily 
removes the rough edges from the most acidulous, 
irritable and irritating of Senators. In the course 
of years, with hardly an exception, they all become 
cordial friends, with the heartiest good wishes for 
long continuance in the Senate. There is a great 
difference in the jubilant expectations with which 
one enters upon a new field of work and the calm 
and reminiscent mood with which he returns to 
private life. The principal difference which I find 
now is that while I was in I was in receipt on the 
average of one hundred and fifty letters a day, 
one hundred of them wanting things, most of which 
it was impossible for me to procure, and the other 
fifty abusing me because I failed to land the writer 
in a diplomatic or a consular position, in a high 
place in the departments, or upon the permanent 
pension roll either as a beginner or with an in- 
crease. As an out, my mail dwindles to twenty let- 
ters a day, most of them giving advice. Some say, 

[10] 



TWENTIETH BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

"You are seventy-seven years of age, remarkably 
well preserved, and yet you cannot hope to reach 
one hundred unless you quit dining and eating." 
Others say, "Chew until the last morsel has dis- 
appeared before you swallow." Others say, "You 
must stop drinking." Others prescribe the limits 
of exercise and the kinds of health foods. Others 
tell me that the judgment of a man past seventy 
is never good as to investments, that radical legisla- 
tion is to impair the income of railway securities, 
and bad management of industries, but that he 
has a mine to develop or a fertilizer to put upon 
the market and with a little money the returns 
will mean luxury for life. 

I was elected a Member of the Legislature in 1861. 
1911 rounds out fifty years in intimate contact with 
public life or in the public service. The thought 
which most impresses itself upon me is that the 
functions of government, the rights of the citizen, 
the influence of laws upon the people have entirely 
changed during that period; I think, emphatically 
for the better. The iconoclast has been abroad and 
shattered the most cherished images of the Fathers. 
If one of the framers of the Constitution could be 
reincarnated and visit us today, he would find the 
same great instrument almost unchanged, still the 
fundamental law of the land, but he would dis- 
cover that legislation forced by the growth of the 
country, the rapid development of its resources, the 
influences of steam and electricity, had compelled 
the enactment of restrictive laws which he would 
regard as tyrannical restrictions upon individual lib- 
erty, and that those laws had been sustained as 
Constitutional by the interpretations of the Su- 
preme Court. He would discover that these inter- 
pretations had so treated the general principles of 

[11] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

his Constitution as to make them applicable and 
serviceable for a progress so radical as to seem to 
him revolutionary. Jefferson pinned his faith on 
the individual. He emphatically declared, "That 
government is best which governs least." His idea 
was to give the freest rein to individual initiative, 
effort and achievement. It was this which made 
him opposed to slavery and anxious for its abolition. 
The ideas of Jefferson controlled the legislation of 
the Republic down to the Civil War. The first 
break in the traditional sentiments and principles 
which had so long governed us was when the Su- 
preme Court found warrant in the Constitution to 
raise armies to coerce sovereign States and compel 
them to remain within the Union ; not only to raise 
armies, but to incur gigantic debts and expand the 
revenue in every possible direction to establish the 
fact that the Union of the States is indestructible 
and eternal. 

After the Civil War and the elimination of slave 
labor, the United States entered upon a new in- 
dustrial era. Railroads spanned the continent, and 
in doing so created fanns, villages, cities, and 
new States. There were in 1861 about thirty-five 
thousand miles of railway in the United States, and 
in 1911 the mileage has increased to two hundred 
and thirty-six thousand, which is one-half the rail- 
way mileage of the world. The necessity of great 
aggregations of capital to construct these iron high- 
ways, to promote manufactures, to develop the re- 
sources of the country and its mines, its forests 
and its fields, rapidly created corporations. The old 
Jefferson ideas gave to capital, whether possessed 
by an individual or a partnership or a corpora- 
tion, the freest rein. The people were eager for 
the development of the national wealth. Their im- 

[12] 



TWENTIETH BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

aginations were fired with the opportunities it gave 
to their children for success beyond the dreams of 
the present generation and for the permanent and 
healthful employment of everybody. After a while 
it was found that if the corporation was not regu- 
lated by law, and did not have upon it the re- 
straining power of the government, and was not 
compelled to have its operations exposed to the 
light of publicity, that the public, the corporations 
and their investors were subject to great evils and 
perils. Then began legislation upon the collective 
instead of the individual principle. The railroads, 
with the absolute freedom which was thought nec- 
essary for their primitive expansion, engaged in 
ruinous competition with each other which impaired 
the efficiency of the service and the strength of the 
companies. Discriminations by rebates and other 
devices for favored cities, towns or individuals be- 
came common. Business dried up along the weaker 
lines under the original false idea that the proper 
way to secure justice from the railroad was to 
promote competition by law. Then rapidly came 
State and National commissions. Then came pro- 
hibitions against rebates, discriminations and favor- 
itism, and then was developed what is nearly com- 
pleted — that ideal of corporate management, the 
controlling power of the government to prevent 
abuses and also to protect the corporations in their 
rights, the expansion, extension, improvement and 
increasing efficiency of private ownership as against 
the waste and profligacy of ownership by the gov- 
ernment. Now, here we have what might be called 
collective action reversing our time-honored rules 
and principles and yet working beneficially for pro- 
tecting without restricting enterprise and progress. 
To accomplish these results larger powers have been 

[13] 



OX THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

given to the Interstate Commerce Commission and 
a Court of Commerce created with adequate juris- 
diction. Soon it was found necessary that the old 
idea which had governed us for eighty years should 
be reversed as to all corporations. The legislation 
along this line reached so many in every settlement 
of the country that it raised a wild cry of alarm. It 
was shouted that private business was to be de- 
stroyed and fatal restrictions placed upon national 
development. The selfishness which to save expense 
made factories unsanitary and unsafe was practised 
as much by individuals as by corporations. The 
employment of children and the destruction of child 
life in order to make more money was found to 
be as much the vice of individuals as of corpora- 
tions. So the law stepped in and swept away the 
whole theory of individualism and proceeded dras- 
tically to protect by law, by inspection and by 
government supervision the lives and the health of 
the people in the factories and to protect the chil- 
dren. We have not gone quite far enough. That 
frightful holocaust of the factory fire in New York 
a few days since shows that these laws must be 
more drastic, supervision more perfect and punish- 
ment more severe. 

These instances which I have cited, and they 
could be continued almost indefinitely, demonstrate 
the complete change in our government in these 
fifty years of my public life, but no sane men will 
question that the change has been most beneficial 
and absolutely necessary. We as a people go to 
extremes. Having advanced thus far, our danger is 
that the unthinking may go on from protection to 
restrictions so severe as to endanger progress and 
enterprise. Corporate development during this 
period is not confined to the United States, but 

[14] 



TWENTIETH BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

has been equally rapid in all countries. With the 
cable and cheap and rapid transportation over the 
seas the surplus savings of each country are at the 
service of all nations. The fluidity of capital makes 
Kings and Parliaments and Presidents and Con- 
gresses boards of directors of those huge competitive 
business organizations their several nations, upon 
whose success depends the living of their peoples 
and the extent to which prosperous conditions may 
ward off penury and starvation and promote pros- 
perity. The great industrial nations, like Great 
Britain and Germany, encourage great combina- 
tions. They do it to increase the efficiency and 
cheapness of their productions, because their in- 
creasing populations and surplus threaten danger- 
ous congestion and are a menace to the stability 
of their institutions and the peace and order of 
their communities. Their object is to capture for 
the sale of their surplus the markets of the world. 
They further help their own industries by encourag- 
ing and creating a mercantile marine which will 
sail upon every sea and reach every port by sub- 
sidies sufficiently large and liberal to accomplish 
this result. The United States has taken an op- 
posite course. We have persistently refused en- 
couragement to the upbuilding of a mercantile 
marine. When Secretary of State Root made his 
famous visit to the South American Republics, 
he found in the crowded shipping of their ports 
but one vessel flying the American flag and our 
battleship fleet in its cruise around the world saw 
the ensign of their country only on their own masts. 
The thousands of steamers in the ports of these 
countries were English, German, French, Belgian, 
Italian, Austrian, Swedish and Norwegian, some 
carrying American products, but all agents for the 

[15] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

manufacturers and business men of their own coun- 
tries. The country became so alarmed at the rapid- 
ity with which industrial combinations were formed 
that the Sherman Anti-Trust Act was passed twenty 
years ago. It fairly expressed the idea of that 
period which was that the common law which had 
proved ample for the restraint of bad combinations 
for three hundred years was not sufficient to meet 
these new conditions, but that all industrial com- 
binations, good or bad, should be prohibited and 
as far as possible we should become as a people 
retailers rather than wholesalers in the exploitation, 
perfecting and marketing of our products. Capital 
seeking opportunities for investment, labor with 
unions strong enough to protect itself demanding 
opportunities for employment and increasing wages, 
and communities striving against each other for im- 
migration and the rapid development of their local 
resources, were all carried along by the resistless 
power of the tendency of the times to get around 
or to overcome the effects of this law. Several 
States which have quickly grasped both the oppor- 
tunity and the necessity have endeavored to over- 
come the restrictive and repressive influence of the 
law by the exercise of their sovereign power, while 
others have supplemented by more drastic acts the 
Sherman Law. The States which have taken the 
independent course have attracted immigration and 
capital and increased their population in the last 
decade as well as expanded their industries, while 
the commonwealths which have pursued the other 
course have decreased in population because their 
young men could find no employment, and, there- 
fore, were compelled to migrate either to Canada 
for cheap farms or to the industrial States for their 
opportunities. But these progressive common- 

[16] 



TWENTIETH BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

wealths are finding their legislation up against the 
power of the government when their products go 
beyond their borders in interstate commerce. A 
large measure of the unrest, the lack of employ- 
ment, the halting of business, and the depreciation 
of securities, are due to the uncertainties of this 
situation. The need of the hour is constructive 
statesmanship which will provide by national in- 
corporations opportunity for the free play of capital, 
the largest possible employment of labor and the 
protection of the public under a supervision by a 
bureau of the general government, which, while pre- 
venting abuses, will permit progress. President 
Roosevelt made an admirable move in this direc- 
tion by his Congress of Governors, the idea being 
that through them there might be uniform laws 
throughout the country. It is an almost insuperable 
barrier to our proper and wise development as a 
nation that what is lawful and encouraged in one 
commonwealth should be penalized in another, that 
the family, that sacred relation upon which every- 
thing else rests, should under diverse divorce laws 
be in danger of disruption and destruction because 
a couple may be husband and wife in one jurisdic- 
tion but the wife a mistress and the children il- 
legitimate in another. 

One of the causes of unrest which is so universal 
is the high cost of living. Due in a measure to this 
is the initiative, the referendum and the recall, and 
many other devices to destroy representative gov- 
ernment. I met in my experience a concrete illus- 
tration which seemed to prove that the main trouble 
is not so much the high cost of living as the cost 
of high living. When I was a boy, sixty odd years 
ago, I knew a successful village storekeeper who 
opened the store himself at seven o'clock in the 

[17] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

morning and closed it at night. He had one as- 
sistant of all work, and he helped in building the 
fire, for there were no furnaces in those days, in 
filling and trimming the lamps, for there was no 
electric light or gas, and a single horse, which he 
groomed himself, hauled the delivery wagon and 
took his family out in the rockaway for a ride on 
Sunday afternoons. He was contented, happy and 
prosperous. I stopped in to see his son not long 
ago. He had furnace heat, electric lights, clerks 
who relieved him of much of the work of his father, 
an automobile at the door, a telephone on his desk 
and a typewriter on his lap, and complained of 
the high cost of living. 

One of the most extraordinary of the changes in 
the period we are discussing is our attitude toward 
the negro. I speak of this because of close contact 
with the question during discussions in the Senate 
on the amendment to the Constitution to change 
the method of electing United States Senators from 
the Legislature to the people. I there found that 
the sentiment which so overwhelmingly placed in 
the Constitution the Thirteenth and Fourteenth 
Amendments for the protection of the negro had 
decreased to an almost utter indifference to his 
civil and political rights. The theory under which 
we permit immigrants of every grade of intelligence 
to become citizens after a certain probation is that 
under our common school system, our free educa- 
tion and the influence of our institutions they will 
be worthy of that high privilege. The results have 
justified the theory. We do this also in the belief 
that it is dangerous to have in our midst a large 
and increasing body of aliens who neither enjoy 
nor can be permitted to enjoy the privileges and 
responsibilities of citizenship. Many States in 

[18] 



TWENTIETH BIETHDAY SPEECH 

which there is a large negro population have by- 
various devices deprived them of the suffrage. Of 
course this is in violation of the Thirteenth and 
Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. 
These States greatly fear that some time the ques- 
tion may reach the Supreme Court of the United 
States in such a way that the court may decide 
against this legislation. So when the resolution was 
offered during the last Congress to change the Con- 
stitution by simply saying that hereafter United 
States Senators should be elected by the people 
instead of by the Legislatures, these States which 
deny the negroes the right to vote made the de- 
mand that they would not support the proposition 
unless the provision of the Constitution which has 
been there for one hundred and twenty-five years 
giving the United States supervisory power over 
the elections should be repealed. A few days ago 
this question came up in the House of Representa- 
tives. The resolution amending the Constitution 
was reported from the committee with this repeal 
of governmental supervision, and in that form it 
passed the House by the affirmative vote of three- 
fourths of its members. The resolution as it passed 
the House not only changes the method of electing 
United States Senators, but leaves the qualifications 
of the electors who shall vote for them entirely in 
the discretion of the State Legislatures, which 
means that no negro will ever be permitted to vote 
in a great many States for a United States Senator, 
and means that the restrictive laws have this but- 
tress for their perpetuity if the question comes be- 
fore the Supreme Court. Suppose this action had 
been taken, I will not say immediately after the 
Civil War, with its heat and passion, but thirty 
years ago. There would have come through Henry 

[19] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

Ward Beecher from Plymouth pulpit, Dr. Storrs 
from the Puritan Church, and Theodore Parker 
from the Temple in Boston, an appeal which would 
have aroused the whole country. Every pulpit 
in the Northern States would have rung with de- 
nunciations of this bargain and surrender. All the 
great newspapers would have joined and mass meet- 
ings everywhere would have voiced the public in- 
dignation, but with the exception of a criticism from 
a few newspapers there is apparently no feeling left 
on the subject in the country. 

Encouraged by this vote, the day after the repeal 
of this century and a quarter old protection for the 
Government and Congress was so overwhelmingly 
passed as a triumphant rider on the proposition for 
the election of Senators by the people, a resolution 
was offered in the House of Representatives to re- 
peal the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. 

This half century is a wonderful inspiration for 
optimism. Let the American boys and girls who 
have become familiar with the rise and fall of 
empires, and with the startling revolutions in Eu- 
rope during those fifty years, study the story of 
their own country from 1861 to 1911. It has no 
equal in all that tends to liberty, progress, intel- 
ligence and the influences which make life worth 
the living. There are some discoveries which are 
disquieting, but at the same time they have their 
compensations in health and the prolongation of 
life. Fifty years ago we had not discovered mi- 
crobes or bacteria. We were peacefully ignorant 
of the battles which are constantly raging in our 
blood between the good and the bad microbes. 
Myriads of people died with peritonitis, not know- 
ing that to cut out the appendix ended the trouble. 
Patent medicines, compounded mainly of whiskey, 

[20] 



TWENTIETH BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

opium or cocaine, were the greatest aids to the doc- 
tors and the undertakers. While the Pure Food 
Law which compels the makers of these stuffs to put 
their formula on the bottle is declared to be an 
invasion of individual liberty, it has saved millions 
of lives. 

My breakfast for years has been one boiled egg. 
I found recently when I took it out of the shell 
that it was as lively as soda water when the bottle 
is first opened. It had fermented. I felt as did 
Horace Greeley, who, at a formal dinner, was so 
absorbed in his talk that, not noting what he was 
eating, he got a mouthful of the sorbet which was 
concocted of Jamaica rum. Angry and spluttering, 
he turned savagely to his hostess and shouted, 
"Madam, I never drink intoxicating liquors, and 
you know it, but if I did I don't want my rum 
frozen." I said to my dealer, "An egg fortifies me 
for the day, but I don't want soda water eggs, for 
which I am paying you sixty cents a dozen." 
"Well," said the eggman, "those are case eggs, but 
I will send you fresher eggs for seventy cents a 
dozen." Case eggs were cold storage eggs and the 
best of that class. Nearly fifty millions of the 
worst, which had become filthy poisons, were de- 
stroyed by the food inspectors this year. Yet the 
cold storage men say, "This is an interference with 
individual liberty." But that law should be 
strengthened. The farmer received for those sev- 
enty cent eggs only twenty cents a dozen; fifty 
cents went to the middlemen. If the farmers would 
form a co-operative trust they could divide that 
fifty cents with the consumers, and thus increase 
their profits and reduce the cost of living. 

As industrial occupations have become hazardous 
we are progressing upon lines of legislation for the 

[21] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

mass as against the individual by making the in- 
dividual responsible for death or for damages in- 
curred in these employments. We have even within 
the last four years had legislation which makes the 
government as an employer responsible in compen- 
satory damages for injuries to its employees. If I 
may mention myself in a birthday speech, that is 
one of my legislative monuments. People think 
right when they are informed. No demagogue long 
survives when the district school year has been ex- 
tended from ninety days to nine months in his 
community. Just now many are rising to notice 
or distinction by denouncing the "Interests." The 
"Interests" has become almost as effective a cry 
for political purposes as was at one time the rail- 
roads and at another time corporations. When 
an analysis is made of what the orator is trying 
to accomplish in this vague denunciation of the 
"Interests" it will be found that it is an appeal to 
that universal unrest, strong in every one of us, 
against the fellow who is a little better off than 
ourselves. 

A statesman in the Legislature at Albany the 
other day after the Assembly had cordially received 
me disturbed the harmony by saying that I did 
not represent the common people. It was a delight- 
ful occasion. This did not occur until after I left, 
but there is nothing perfect in this world. There 
is always a flaw in the emerald or a fly in the amber. 
But yet this statement may mar his own political 
future by talking about the common people. In our 
country, where all are equal before the law, where 
there are no classes, no privileges, where ninety- 
nine out of every hundred of the heads of our rail- 
roads, our banks, our insurance companies, our 
business enterprises, our statesmen, started as poor 

[22] 



TWENTIETH BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

boys, there are no common people. Even Lincoln 
never used that word, and if any man was a tribune 
of the people he in all our history is their leader. 
I heard General Spinola tell a story of how he 
ruined his chances once for the Assembly by saying 
in a speech in the Sixth Ward that he was glad to 
get down to that locality. An indignant citizen 
sprang to his feet and yelled, "Low-cality is it? 
We'll show you we are high-cality," and only the 
policeman saved him from the mob. Everybody 
ought to think for himself, but it is not easy to 
think right. I remember a Senator making a speech 
upon a question where his State was divided and 
the canvass for his re-election was on. As he bal- 
anced the pros and cons until it became a fair 
wager how long he would stay on the fence and 
on which side he would land, a witty colleague 
remarked, "That speech reminds me of a farmer 
who took his clock to the maker and said, 'I wish 
you would mend this clock. I do not know what 
is the matter with it, because when it strikes four 
and the hands point to twelve I know it is half past 
one.' " 

Of the seventy-seven class is Doctor Eliot, Presi- 
dent Emeritus of Harvard. He celebrated his birth- 
day during this month. I read on Sunday his inter- 
view in which he gives with that wonderful precision 
and lucidity which has always characterized him the 
rules which make him vigorous at seventy-seven 
and hopeful for the future. Cheerfulness and tem- 
perance run through his inspiring talk. I think I 
can agree with him when he says, "Go to church. 
Keep a clean heart and a good conscience. Give 
your mind exercise as well as your body— really 
think. Exercise regularly. Eat in moderation. 
Take a full allowance of sleep. Avoid indulgence 

[23] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

in luxury and the habitual use of any drug, not 
only of alcohol but of tobacco, tea and coffee." If 
I do not go to church on Sunday, I am uncomfort- 
able the whole week, and I am always inspired by 
the services and the sermon. Eating in moderation 
I have preached at all these dinners, but I never 
have had time for regular exercises. Sleep is the ab- 
solute necessity for health and longevity. It was 
said of Napoleon that he required only four hours, 
but one of the innumerable biographies from those 
who were on his staff says that he often slept in his 
saddle. A man at seventy-seven should not attempt 
things which would be easy at forty no matter how 
vigorous he may feel. Matthew Arnold died be- 
cause at sixty-five he took a flying leap over a high 
fence to shame the boys. 

The most difficult advice to follow given by Doc- 
tor Eliot is to really think. Most people exercise 
their minds along the lines of their business or 
profession, but on general subjects let the news- 
papers do the thinking for them. This becomes a 
habit from which it is almost impossible to break 
away and real thinking becomes too hard a task. 
A farmer on the western reserve of Ohio, sitting 
with a troubled look on his face, was asked by a 
traveler what was the matter. He said, "My Dem- 
ocratic neighbor got the better of me in an argu- 
ment last night, but wait until the weekly Tribune 
comes with old Greeley's editorial and then I will 
smash him to bits." 

Passing through Albany at one time I learned 
that the Governor of our State, a very successful 
man, and whom I highly valued as a friend, was 
ill. I stopped over a train and went up to see 
him. I found him in dressing-gown and slippers, 
surrounded by the hundreds of bills which had 

[24] 



TWENTIETH BIKTHDAY SPEECH 

been left on his hands by the Legislature and which 
were to be signed or sent unsigned to the Secretary 
of State's office before the constitutional limit of 
days allowed him had expired. He said, "Chauncey, 
here are questions of sociology, of municipal gov- 
ernment, of the regulation of charities, of reforma- 
tories, of conservation and a hundred other things, 
to which I have never given attention. You make 
so many speeches on so many questions that you 
must do a great deal of thinking. I wonder if it 
affects you as it does me?" "Well," I said, "Gov- 
ernor, how does it affect you?" He said, "The same 
as a rough sea, and I am a mighty poor sailor." 

I was talking the other day with a farmer, an 
old friend, and he revealed to me a brand new way 
of getting around these most necessary laws against 
watering milk, short measure in the basket and the 
barrel and short weight on the scales, legislation 
against which is all of this period that I have been 
discussing. He said, "I let my cows in warm 
weather stand during the middle of the day in 
water. I find that by the processes of absorption 
they give twenty per cent more milk." Of course 
this method of watering milk is beyond the reach of 
the law or the inspector. 

My friend Choate has said in one of his happy 
speeches that from seventy to eighty are the best 
days in a long life. Having already passed the ma- 
jority of these years, I am in full accord with my 
friend. Gladstone said that the best and happiest 
period of his life was after sixty, but he was in the 
eighties when he swept the country by a marvelous 
personal canvass and carried his Irish Home Rule 
Bill, and at eighty-five he wrote to that most de- 
lightful of English social leaders, Lady Dorothy 
Nevill, "The year hand of the clock of time has 

[25] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

marked eighty-five and has nearly run its course. I 
have much cause to be thankful, still more to be 
prospective." It was my privilege to meet Lady 
Dorothy very often years ago, and so I read with the 
greatest interest her reminiscences which have re- 
cently been published. In them Lady Dorothy tells 
this charming story about an aunt who, she says, was 
the homeliest woman in Great Britain, so homely 
that she passed forty without ever receiving an offer. 
Wolfe, the explorer, was the lion of the London 
season and sat beside her at dinner. She became 
so excited with his adventures among the lions and 
elephants that she dropped her fork. JThe ex- 
plorer unhesitatingly plunged under the table to 
find it in a more adventurous journey than he had 
ever had in Central Africa. When he discovered 
it he pinched her foot. It was the only attention 
she had ever received and she fell madly in love 
with him. Soon after they were married. This 
reminds me that in reading the life of Samuel 
Rogers, the poet banker, his biography says that 
while his faculties were not impaired otherwise his 
memory was completely gone after ninety. An ef- 
fort which was made by a scientist to rouse that 
faculty when Rogers was ninety-two resulted only 
in his recalling the name of the girl who had re- 
jected his offer of marriage when he was a young 
man. The story of the pinch of the foot and its re- 
sult and of this only recollection of the nonagenarian 
poet indicates what lives when everything else has 

died. 

I frequently meet with men past sixty who com- 
plain that their friends and companions are dead 
and they are unable to find new ones to take their 
places. So they say life is very dull and uninterest- 
ing. These unfortunate people have not found the 

[26] 



TWENTIETH BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

true secret of happiness at any age. It is to be 
part of each generation, to be a participant in its 
work and in its play, to appreciate its fun and not 
laugh at its follies, to be an elder brother in your 
church associations, in your political organizations, 
in your club life, in your fraternity, so alert and 
valuable in your activities that you are welcomed 
by the youngest and the experience of venerable 
years gives a value to your advice which commands 
the attention of all. This appreciation and applause 
is the most healthful of tonics and one of the best 
aids to vigorous longevity. 



[27] 



Speech at the Twenty-first Annual Dinner given 
by the Montauk Club of Brooklyn, in Cele- 
bration of Mr. Depew's Seventy-eighth Birth- 
day, May 4, 1912. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: 

To-night this series of birthday dinners comes of 
age. For twenty-one successive years you have hon- 
ored me with this compliment. Some members 
have died, but their sons, introduced to me here 
when they were boys, are now succeeding their 
fathers among my generous hosts. I know nothing 
in the way of friendly greeting from a large body 
of men which compares with it. Some things have 
occurred at this table during this period which have 
been widely published and discussed. Through 
them the Montauk Club has been mentioned and 
known all over the world. I remember some years 
ago walking down the Strand in London with Gov- 
ernor Woodruff, how both of us were astonished to 
hear the newsboys shouting, "Speech of Chauncey 
Depew at the Montauk Club," and to see the name 
in black letters on every news stands under the 
heading of the newspaper which featured the event. 
Multitudes became familiar with the Montauk Club 
who had never before, and have never since, heard 
of Brooklyn. 

The presence here of my friends Governor Wood- 
ruff and Comptroller Prendergast suggests an illumi- 
nating incident showing the effects of the Presi- 
dential primary on the citizen. They live in the 
same Congressional district which is entitled to two 

[28] 



TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

delegates to the National Republican Convention. 
It is a most intelligent community brought up under 
the eloquence of Henry Ward Beecher and the 
Reverend Dr. Storrs, two of the most remarkable 
orators of this generation. Woodruff announced 
that he was for Taft. Prendergast declared em- 
phatically for Roosevelt, and this constituency 
elected both unanimously. 

In the varying periods at which people arrive 
at intelligent maturity, it is hard to determine how 
twenty-one came to be selected as the proper date 
for every degree of intelligence. In my own experi- 
ence I have known many who were fully qualified 
for the responsibilities of manhood several years be- 
fore twenty-one and others who never became of 
age. For some unaccountable reason they fail to 
grasp the opportunities which come to every man 
in a greater or less degree during his life. Their 
progress is arrested somehow and they never get 
beyond the station where they have landed, while 
others make a tremendous splurge in their progres- 
sion but never arrive. Many in their intellectual 
equipment present a Queen Anne front with a 
Mary Ann back. They seem to possess everything 
necessary for success, and yet their friends are 
always disappointed in them and can never tell 
what screw is loose in their machinery. 

In looking over the record of the seventy-eight 
years of my life, of which more than sixty years 
have been intensively active, during which time I 
have been blessed with rare opportunities -for 
acquaintances and worldwide observations, I find no 
place for the pessimism of to-day which is so prev- 
alent in every organ of public opinion and at every 
gathering of the people. They tell us that the 
family bond is loosening and the sacred tie of 

[29] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

marriage has lost strength in the knot. There are 
twenty millions of married people in the United 
States, and the percentage of them who have sought 
relief in the courts from their bond is not appreci- 
able compared with the whole. They say suicides 
are increasing. There are ninety millions of people 
in the United States, and a suicide is so rare that 
it occupies the headlines for that one unfortunate. 
They complain that there is an increase in breaches 
of trust. There have been in the last twenty years 
continuously in places of the highest trust in cor- 
porations and fiduciary relations with individuals 
at least twenty-five thousand people, and yet a 
breach of trust is so rare in a great institution or in 
the administration of an estate that it arrests and 
occupies the attention of the whole country. They 
tell us that religion has been superseded by doubt, 
but the churches were never so near together, never 
worked so harmoniously in common, never were ren- 
dering such efficient service and never so open. 
Their contributions were never so large nor so ef- 
ficiently applied. There were never so many assist- 
ing organizations, like the Salvation Army, the 
Volunteers of America, the Epworth League, the 
Christian Endeavor Society, the Young Men's and 
Young Women's Christian Associations, and now 
this newly organized and aggressive force, gathering 
strength from day to day, the Religion and Forward 
Movement. 

It is true there is unrest in the world. It is 
more acute than ever before. It is in all countries. 
It has come from the increase in education and the 
enlargement of the world view to the individual 
everywhere, but^ with the exception of the in- 
finitesimally small number of anarchistic leaders, 
it is an honest, earnest and wholesome striving for 

[30] 



TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

better conditions, and, in the end, for more harmoni- 
ous relations between all classes and conditions of 
the community. 

In our annual celebrations during these twenty- 
one years, we have touched lightly, for it could only 
be lightly, upon the happenings of the twelve 
months preceding. We have always drawn from 
them the lesson of hope and the inspiration of 
progress. As we look back over the whole twenty- 
one years they are pregnant with lessons. The prin- 
cipal lesson is the value of discussion and educa- 
tion in affairs affecting the government and the 
people as a whole. I have ceased to be frightened 
or greatly disturbed over tumultuous popular up- 
risings which seem to threaten the very founda- 
tions. The Ark of the Covenant may rock on rough 
roads, or with incompetent guides, or the efforts 
of impious hands to see what would follow the de- 
struction of faith, and yet after proper efforts, 
after the lazy have been energized, after the at- 
mosphere has been cleared by the heat of debate, 
the social and political fabric is not rebuilt but 
improved and remains stable for another long 
period. 

Our experiment of government started with the 
Confederation. It was found to be a rope of sand. 
With that experience our Fathers framed the pres- 
ent Constitution and created a Republic of sov- 
ereign States with a supreme central government. 
They threw every possible check around hasty and 
immature action and every guard which wisdom 
and forethought could devise against revolution. 
The result is that our Constitution is the only one 
in the world which lives to-day as it did one hun- 
dred and twenty-five years ago and is found as 
adaptable for all the wants, all the desires, all the 

[31] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

aspirations and all the development of ninety mil- 
lions of people and forty-eight States as it was 
for three millions of people and thirteen States. 

I well remember the years of the slavery discus- 
sion from '48 to '61. It began with a few Abolition- 
ists who were regarded as anarchists. With dis- 
cussion and debate, it got so far as to safeguard 
the institution where it existed and to prohibit its 
extension into the States that were to be formed 
out of the new territories. On that issue and the 
preservation of the Union we fought the Civil 
War and slavery was abolished and the Union was 
triumphant. Then came the long discussion of re- 
construction. Had the extremist prevailed the 
States which went into rebellion would have re- 
mained subject provinces with a certainty of fre- 
quent revolutions. Again discussion and debate al- 
layed passions, buried resentments, recognized that 
the country must live, if it lived at all, under the 
Constitution of the Fathers and with a central gov- 
ernment and sovereign States as they originated it. 
That settled forever the question of the Union of 
the States and of the powers of the Federal Gov- 
ernment as distinguished from those of the state 
sovereignties. 

We can all remember the cowardice of the public 
men of all parties in the United States during the 
period of irredeemable currency and fiat money. 
Again discussion and debate, aided by frequent 
panics and frightful bankruptcies, brought us to 
the resumption of specie payments. Then for 
twenty years cowardice among those who knew, 
and there were not many, and the desire to catch 
the fleeting sentiment of the hour by demagogues, 
and there were many, and the passionate belief in 
silver which was almost universal ruled and nearly 

[32] 



TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

ruined the country. Again discussion and debate, 
and the wholesome discipline of financial disturb- 
ances and industrial disasters and general bank- 
ruptcies clarified the air and that question was dis- 
posed of. We came to a gold standard like all the 
rest of the highly organized industrial nations of the 
world. 

We then entered at once upon an extraordinary 
period of development of resources, of extension of 
enterprises, of settlement of new lands, of organiza- 
tion of growing communities and a general pros- 
perity such as the world has never witnessed. 

The Presidents during this period, and I will only 
speak of those who have joined the majority, were 
Harrison, Cleveland and McKinley. 

Harrison was one of the ablest of our Presidents. 
He was a great lawyer and had a wonderful and 
intuitive grasp of our internal policy and foreign 
relations. He had an unfortunate manner, though 
a very warm, genial, loving and lovable disposi- 
tion. I have known many public men who failed 
long before they reached the presidency because of 
unfortunate manners. I have known many busi- 
ness men who were most unpopular for the same 
reason. It comes usually from the hard struggle 
in the beginning of a career. It comes sometimes 
from timidity and distrust of one's self. I have 
known people who were most rude and discourteous, 
which was their only method of asserting their in- 
dividuality and equality with others who, for some 
reason which they could not account for, they dis- 
trusted or feared. General Harrison said to me one 
day, "My whole life has been one of struggle and 
fight. No one ever did me a favor or lent me a 
helping hand. I began alone without fortune or 
acquaintances. Every step of my career has been 

[33] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

against violent, and often virulent, opposition." 
In that brief expression I saw the secret of his un- 
popularity. Everyone with whom he came in con- 
tact was a possible enemy, but when the story of 
his administration comes to be written his fame 
will grow brighter as the narrative advances. 

Harrison offered me a place in his Cabinet at 
the beginning of his administration and the position 
of Secretary of State when Blaine resigned, which 
I declined, but promised to accept if he was re- 
elected. This brought about an opportunity for 
intimacy with and study and appreciation of this 
remarkable man who won laurels on battlefields as 
a soldier, distinction at the Bar and an enduring 
place in our history as a statesman. 

Cleveland I knew at the Bar — a strong, robust, 
virile, self-reliant, aggressive, courageous and hon- 
est personality. I have met all the leaders of the 
Bar of the last fifty years, and he certainly was 
an original. While President of the New York 
Central Railroad I offered him the attorneyship 
of the company in Western New York. I said to 
him that he could so organize his office as to keep 
his present practice which was worth ten thousand 
dollars a year, while the place I offered him would 
add fifteen thousand to it. His answer was 
unique — "I have set for myself a limit of the work 
I will do and reserve time enough for pleasure and 
sport and to fish. I have reached my limit in my 
private practice, and a hundred thousand dollars a 
year would not tempt me to add an hour more to 
what I am doing." His convictions were adamant. 
He had been brought up in the Democratic faith 
and would put into practice its theories. When 
the Wilson Tariff Bill was passed, which was a 
compromise between Democratic theories and pro- 

[34] 



TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

tection practices within his party, he denounced it 
as a scheme of perfidy and dishonor and withheld 
his signature. He demanded the repeal of the Sil- 
ver Purchase Bill which threatened endless trouble 
to our currency, and with the aid of Republican 
votes secured it. He vetoed the Bland Silver Bill 
which was the Waterloo of Silver, either by itself 
or in the double standard, being the standard of 
value in the United States. 

Those three things lost him the support of his 
party. He retired from office with an unanimity 
never equalled because the Republicans were nat- 
urally against him and he did not have a corporal's 
guard of political friends in his own party. But 
his rugged figure will ever be a conspicuous one 
among American statesmen. His style in his pub- 
lic documents and addresses had a Johnsonian char- 
acteristic which was new in our political literature. 
I asked him where he acquired it and how. He 
said, "My father was a clergyman. His means were 
limited and he could not afford to send me to the 
academies, and so I was educated at home. He 
took particular pains with my compositions, and 
naturally he taught me the style of his sermons. 
The result was that while at the Bar in Buffalo when 
a member died I was always called upon to write 
the obituary." 

McKinley was the most genial and lovable of our 
Presidents. He would give a visitor a pink from 
the bouquet which was always on his table in a 
manner which led the recipient to believe that none 
other of the millions of men and women and chil- 
dren in the United States had ever received such a 
distinction. Yet he gave pinks to everybody who 
called without destroying this illusion. 

He was the most accomplished campaigner 

[35] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

among our Presidents and had few equals upon the 
platform in popularity and persuasion. He sensed, 
as it were, the public temper and how it might be 
moved as few have ever done. His campaign for 
the Presidency was an extraordinary illustration 
of the thought, which I have been advancing, that 
with discussion, argument and debate the Ameri- 
can people in the end come out right, no matter how 
wrong they may have been from temporary causes 
for a period. Mark Hanna, the most practical 
statesman who ever lived, raised and spent four mil- 
lions of dollars in that canvass, not to buy votes 
but to erect a platform and put a speaker on it in 
every school district in the United States, to secure 
space in the columns of newspapers in every locality 
and to print tons of literature and send colporteurs 
to distribute it in buggy-wagons throughout all the 
highways and byways of the land. That was what 
won the gold standard over the silver craze under 
most unfavorable conditions. 

Mr. McKinley sent for me during this campaign 
and said, "I wish you could take your car and go 
down through those disaffected regions where the 
farmers are all Republicans, but where they are in 
distress because corn is fifteen cents and wheat 
sixty cents a bushel, and they cannot pay the inter- 
est on their mortgages and have hard work with 
their taxes. They think fifty-cent silver, if it has 
the stamp of the United States upon it, will give 
them double for their corn, wheat, cattle and hogs, 
and then they can use it at par to pay the interest 
on their mortgages and their taxes, and the other 
things which they would ordinarily desire they can 
go without for a long time." 

"But," I said, "Mr. McKinley, I am President 
of a great railroad and with a private car those 

[36] 



TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

people would mob me." He said, "Nothing of the 
kind. It is the shock which will secure their atten- 
tion and then your talk will convince them of their 
error." I remember once from a great audience a 
farmer arose, when I thought I was making an im- 
pressive argument against silver, and said, "Chaun- 
cey Depew, we are glad to see you, but what right 
have you to come among us in our distress when 
the present prices of the things we have to sell do 
not pay for the raising of them, while we think with 
fifty-cent silver we will get double the price. But 
that is not what I complain of; it is that you, 
President of a great railroad, with a salary of fifty 
thousand dollars a year, and in a private car, should 
come down here and attempt to instruct us." I 
lost the audience at once. There is a favorite song 
in Yale — "Audacia! Audacia! It is the word I 
love the best." I stepped to the front of the plat- 
form while a great hush came over the audience and 
said, "Sir, my father gave me my education and 
profession and then figuratively threw me out of the 
window to look out for myself and never helped 
me afterwards. I began in a little village, with no 
capital but my legs, my hands and my head. I had 
a hard struggle trying cases before country Justices 
of the Peace, where I would furnish my own horse 
and wagon and ride ten, fifteen or twenty miles 
and back after the case was tried for five dollars or 
less. An opportunity came to me to be the attor- 
ney of a railroad. I saw that meant that instead 
of one client and petty grievances, every one of 
the thousands of stockholders of the company would 
be my clients, as represented in the Board of Di- 
rectors whom they elected every year, and instead 
of having a score or so of clients, I got many 
thousand. 

[37] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

"A railroad counsel's business is mainly to pre- 
vent the strong and masterful men who have come, 
up from the bottom and are running the corporation 
from violating the law and to keep them straight 
within the law. Now I am President, and getting 
a big salary, as you say, and I am here in a private 
car which is all part of my compensation. I under- 
stand (this I did not know, but it happened to be 
true) that you have at college a son who is your 
pride and hope ; that after he graduates at the com- 
ing Commencement you intend to make him a 
lawyer and you are making great sacrifices to put 
him through college and give him his profession. 
Now, if you are doing that in order that he shall 
practice law for his health, then I have no right 
to be here, but if you wish him to start where I 
did, with the chance of getting where I am, then 
I do not think that you can criticise me." He 
yelled so you could hear him a mile, "Go on, 
Chauncey, you are all right." There is no subject 
so interesting as what is effective in political dis- 
cussion before an audience. That little incident, 
illustrative of the possibilities of American citizen- 
ship for the youth of the land, had more influence 
than all the argument which could be presented. 

Mr. McKinley sent for me again and said, "Mr. 
Bryan is producing a tremendous impression in our 
State, and a very dangerous one, not by what he 
says, but by his endurance. No one has ever gone 
through our State of Ohio who has spoken so often 
and so many hours in a single day. The papers 
are full of his last performance. I want you to 
go over that route and do the same thing. As 
you are nearly twice his age, it will be the most 
effective counterblast I can think of." I did as 
he requested, starting at seven o'clock in the morn- 

[33] 



TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

ing, stopping at the same places, scheduled for the 
same length of time, with enormous audiences every- 
where, and capped it by adding a two-hour speech 
to a great audience at night. The endurance test 
as a qualification for the Presidency passed out of 
the canvass. 

With the exception of the war for the preserva- 
tion of the Union, all our perils under the Consti- 
tution have been averted by discussion and debate. 
A busy people, engrossed in their various occupa- 
tions, have little time to study serious questions of 
government. The ability to transact the affairs of 
the people, the same as the affairs of a corporation, 
or a firm, or a co-operative society, or a charitable 
or religious organization, or a labor union, does not 
depend upon superior intelligence but upon experi- 
ence and the time which can be taken from one's 
other pursuits to serve a large constituency. It is 
because the lawyer or the plumber, the doctor or the 
carpenter, the minister or the mason, knows more 
about his particular business and the performance 
of it in the interests of others than the whole mass 
can that society is thus divided, and each employs 
the others for its comfort, safety and enterprises. 
So, representative government became established 
by the selection by busy people of competent men 
to do this special and most needful work. 

At present, however, there is a new agitation 
which has much force and is progressing rapidly 
and is exciting in many minds the greatest alarm. 
We are better educated than ever before and that 
has created our unrest. At the same time our minds 
are open to a quicker apprehension of the right and 
wrong of all propositions by more education. 

I have not time here, nor have you, to enter upon 
this discussion, except to briefly state a few self- 

[39] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

evident facts. The appeal made by their projectors 
to the people for these new policies is that the 
people do not have their share in their own govern- 
ment. As ours is absolutely a government by the 
people, with frequent elections to test the capacity 
and ability of the officials whom they have elected, 
it is hard to see how the people do not have their 
share in the government. 

Pushed to the extreme, the claim is that the peo- 
ple do not need mayors and boards of aldermen for 
their cities, or presidents and village trustees for 
their villages, or boards of supervisors for their 
counties, or governors and legislatures for their 
States, or Presidents and Congresses for the general 
government, nor courts to protect the weak against 
the strong and to administer justice without fear 
or favor of power, or wealth or influence. It is 
proposed, as soon as a governor or a congressman 
or a judge is elected, to allow a small percentage 
of the people to immediately, by petition, suspend 
his functions and compel him to submit to another 
election. When an unpopular verdict was rendered 
the other day, some of the most advanced of this 
school added to their program also the recall of the 
jury. These propositions are not new. They were 
fully argued by Aristotle over twenty-three hundred 
years ago and declared by him to substitute a gov- 
ernment by anarchy for a government by law. But, 
then, the new school tells us that there is no virtue 
or wisdom in the past which we are bound to fol- 
low. The old fogies who framed the Constitution 
are all right in their niches in the temple of fame, 
but except as models for monuments to ornament 
parks their usefulness long since departed. 

There was an article recently in the papers that 
the literature class at one of our greatest colleges 

[40] 



TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

had been permitted to discard history and the 
classics and study only recent literature. Aristotle 
was quoted favorably by one of the authors in the 
day's lesson, and the professor asked in what period 
Aristotle wrote. The answer was, "about 1840 ; cer- 
tainly not earlier." 

I discovered while in the Senate that there are 
statesmen who, especially on questions in which 
labor unions are interested, will prepare and present 
bills which are transparently unconstitutional. For 
fear that they may lose the authorship, they will 
not permit any changes. Their colleagues let them 
have their way on account of the strength of Sen- 
atorial courtesy, and also for fear that an attempt 
to amend will be regarded as hostility to the meas- 
ure by the labor unions. When the Supreme Court 
decides the act unconstitutional, the author berates 
the court and shouts that the people do not govern 
themselves and wants the judges recalled. He neg- 
lects to state that the court invariably says in its 
decision how that act can be made constitutional 
and effect the same purpose. The court simply per- 
forms its duty and throws back upon the leg- 
islative body the necessity of performing its duty 
intelligently. 

We have long had the referendum in our State 
on Constitutional questions. The Constitutional 
amendments, however, have been thoroughly pre- 
pared and passed by two legislatures before they 
are submitted, and have been discussed in the press 
and on the platform. A table made up recently 
showed this startling result; that on all the con- 
stitutional amendments which have been submitted 
to the people of this State only thirty per cent of 
those who voted for public officers at the time voted 
at all on the constitutional amendments, and a 

[41] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

majority of this thirty per cent put the amendments 
into the Constitution, the result showing that a 
minority of about sixteen per cent of the voters of 
the State who voted at the same elections amended 
the fundamental law. In the submission last year 
the amendments, most of which were most valuable, 
were defeated. I met at the polls a doctor of great 
reputation and extensive practice and a mechanic 
who does a great deal of work for me. I said, 
"How about the constitutional amendments?" and 
each answered substantially, "I have not had time 
to read and study them, and so voted against them 
all on the ground that we seem to have a pretty 
good Constitution and I do not propose to change 
it without more study and reflection." 

I have twice been a Member of the Legislature 
of our State and twelve years a United States Sen- 
ator. It has given me much experience in the way 
laws are made. An act is prepared, more or less 
carefully, and then passes the scrutiny of a com- 
mittee, and then attention and debate in the whole 
house, and then review by the Governor. Even 
with this care many laws fail to meet the object 
for which they were enacted, and are amended or 
repealed at the next session. Under the initiative 
a small minority, wishing to accomplish some def- 
inite object, prepares a statute, and the majority 
of those who vote, which may be much less than 
a majority of the whole electorate, command the 
Legislature to enact and the Governor to sign this 
law just as this little body prepared it. I know 
of no device so potent for able, scheming, plausible, 
unscrupulous and rich men to defraud and injure 
the public. 

With us in New York City the evils of our local 
government become so great at times that the peo- 

[42] 



TWENTY-FIRST BIETHDAY SPEECH 

pie arise in their might and men of all parties unite 
in a reform movement which places clean and able 
representatives of the people in power. As soon 
as the reform has accomplished its purpose, the 
various elements disband, and, except under similar 
revolutionary efforts years afterward, can never be 
brought together. This reform movement elected 
Mayor Gaynor, who has proved to be an admirable 
executive, Comptroller Prendergast, one of the best 
financial officers the City has ever had, and the 
Borough Presidents who are doing excellent work. 
In addition, it elected several Justices of the Su- 
preme Court. Under the recall, when Tammany 
once more had come into power and we had for- 
gotten, as we do so rapidly, the causes which elected 
the reform ticket, ten per cent of the voters could 
recall them, and within a year they would all be 
out of office and the old order in authority. 

During this period there has been greater progress 
for universal peace among the nations than in all 
preceding time, and yet the last year shows how 
frail, as yet, are ties of peace. The lure of the 
Orient captured the imagination of Rome three 
thousand years ago, for the destruction of Carthage, 
the control of the Mediterranean and the conquest 
of Africa. After thirty centuries there is a recrudes- 
cence of the same spirit, which seizes Tripoli and 
brings on a war with Turkey, producing interna- 
tional complications, the result of which no one can 
predict. 

I met last summer an old diplomat who was a 
mine of the secrets of his profession. He told a 
story which illustrated how near we were, for a 
while, to the most disastrous war of modern times. 
The German Emperor, the most aggressive ruler 
his country ever had, made his delphic utterance 

[43] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

that Germany must have her place in the Sun. 
From the German standpoint, and after her success 
in acquiring Alsace and Lorraine, there was no coun- 
try which could be crowded out to make room for 
Germany, except France. There was a revolt 
against the Sultan of Morocco and anarchy existed 
at the Moroccan capital. Germany said to France, 
"As you have the controlling influence in Morocco, 
you must restore order, so our people will not be 
molested in their trade and commerce, or we will 
do it." France said, "Very well, we will assume 
the responsibility." The French army marched to 
Fez, subdued the rebellion, restored order and saved 
the Sultan. Germany then said, "This success of 
yours has given France such undue prominence in 
Africa that Germany must be compensated." But 
France replied, "We undertook this at your request, 
and not for conquest, and we will retire at once 
and move our army back to Algiers." Germany 
said, "That will not help. Your government has 
been given prestige, and that is an undue power, 
and so we must be compensated." 

German cruisers appeared in Moroccan ports, and 
an army of 700,000 men, the strongest, best dis- 
ciplined and best equipped in the world, was ready 
to move across the French frontier on an hour's 
notice. England emphatically declared herself an 
ally of France, and Russia was not far behind. It 
was discovered that the French army was more 
efficient than since Napoleon, and that there was a 
patriotic spirit in France which had not been 
equalled in any period since the Republic. Then 
began the famous conversations between my old 
friend Ambassador Cambon and the German for- 
eign minister von Kinderlen-Waechter. Cambon 
is a delightful conversationalist, but even his powers 

[44] 



TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

must have been strained to keep up the interest for 
hours every day during several months. The con- 
versations resulted, however, in granting France 
suzerainty over Morocco, which may cause more 
trouble than it will give profit, and Germany se- 
cured its bigger place in the Sun by taking from 
France a large part of her African possessions. 

Contempt for the wisdom of the past is also not 
new. My father was a plain-spoken man with the 
characteristics of the earlier people whose ancestors 
settled along the Hudson River. In his declining 
years he was accustomed to sit on the piazza, smoke 
his cigar and read his paper. There were some col- 
lege students practicing for a boat race in the bay. 
Returning after their exercises, they jumped onto 
the wall of the terrace in front of the house and 
began discussing the superiority of the present gen- 
eration over the preceding ones. One of them 
said triumphantly, "My father is seventy-five years 
old and for his period a very intelligent man, but 
with the opportunities there are to-day I know 
more and have more intelligence than my father 
has at seventy-five," and turning around he shouted 
to my father, "Well, old gentleman, what do you 
think of that?" Father's answer was, "I was think- 
ing what a damned fool your father must be." 

No American can fail to be a progressive. The 
story of American progress during the one hundred 
and twenty-five years under our form of govern- 
ment is a most thrilling narrative. It surpasses 
in romance and reality the progress of all preceding 
ages. We only need to study to learn that most of 
these new notions are not progress, but they were 
tried thoroughly and ended in lamentable disasters 
in ancient and mediaeval republics and in the revolu- 
tions of modern governments. 

[45] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

Talleyrand, fleeing from the guillotine in the 
French Revolution, and coming to America, wrote 
to Madame de Stael that he found here thirty-two 
religions and only one sauce, but when Talleyrand's 
countrymen arrive on the occasion of the celebration 
of the unveiling of the monument to Champlain this 
week, they will discover that probably we have more 
forms of religion and religious sects than existed in 
Talleyrand's time, but we have as many sauces in 
our restaurants and hotels as are to be found in 
Paris. 

We think there is nothing new under the sun, 
and Wall Street remarks, as if it was the discovery 
of that self-sufficient body, that there is danger in 
advance information, but this wise old Frenchman 
Talleyrand also wrote that in betting on certainties 
he lost one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 

I met a friend the other day whom I had not 
seen for a long time and whom I thought had joined 
the majority because he was a consumptive. He 
seemed to be as he had been twenty years before, 
and said, "No, Chauncey, it was not consumption 
but asthma, and you can live forever if you only 
have asthma and the grace of God." 

One of my experiences while in Europe is to be 
asked about expatriated Americans who have as- 
sumed titles of nobility. A French lady of the 
bluest blood said to me last summer, "A country- 
man of yours who claims French descent has sent 
to us an extraordinary genealogy. It surpasses in 
distinction that of the oldest and most distinguished 
of our nobility. Do you know how he came by it?" 
"Oh, yes," I said, "his ancestor fought gloriously 
at Agincourt in 1415, and was killed at Waterloo." 

Well, my friends, the beautiful lesson which we 
can draw from these recurring anniversaries and 

[46] 



TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

their review of the past is what a glorious world 
we live in and what a mighty privilege it is to live. 
We were not created to dream or to long for idle 
days and hours, but to so work that in its accom- 
plishments we derive pleasure from our work and 
to so play that our amusements are our health re- 
storers and our sanatoriums, to so love that we 
can derive comfort and instruction and happiness 
from the whole circle, not only of our friends but of 
our acquaintances, and to have faith so firm in our 
country and its future that without fear and with- 
out doubt, but with hope eternal, we can, after we 
have done our share as citizens, leave it unimpaired 
to those who come after us. 



f 47 1 



Speech at the Twenty-second Annual Dinner 
given by the Montauk Club of Brooklyn, in 
Celebration of Mr. Depew's Seventy-ninth 
Birthday, April 26, 1913. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: 

With each recurrence of these anniversaries I am 
more impressed with the permanence of friendship. 
The proof is here to-night. For twenty-two years 
the members of this Club in celebrating my birth- 
day added to the pleasure of the first meeting an 
original compliment. In twenty-two years several 
generations of club members come and go, but there 
is always a central phalanx of veterans to keep up 
principles and traditions of the organization. I 
have been greeted to-night by fathers who have 
brought their sons, and by sons who have brought 
the grandsons of those who welcomed me within 
these walls twenty-two years ago. The political 
revolutions which have taken place in the country 
and in the State, the financial crises which have for 
a time paralyzed our industries, and the agitations 
which seemed revolutionary, but disappeared, have 
neither interrupted nor impaired our numbers or 
the pleasures of our anniversaries. 

Lucian, the famous gossip of antiquity, the pre- 
decessor and originator of the immortal Pepys, in 
one of his stories, says that he called upon a famous 
centenarian named Gorgias who lived at Corinth 
seventeen hundred years ago, anxious to put the 
questions to which every centenarian has been sub- 
jected ever since, and probably before, for there is 

[48] 



TWENTY-SECOND BIKTHDAY SPEECH 

nothing new under the sun. Lucian called upon 
Gorgias to find out the secrets of his extreme age. 
He said to him, "You have just had your one hun- 
dred and eighth birthday and are enjoying splendid 
health, vigor, and vitality. Now, to what do you 
ascribe it?" Gorgias answered, "To the fact that 
I never have accepted an invitation to dine out." 
One of our centenarians a few days ago, answer- 
ing the same question at one hundred and three, 
said in his case it was due to the fact that he had 
eaten a red herring every day. I think the Ameri- 
can had the better time. He certainly did not eat 
that herring alone, and it created a thirst which led 
to companionship in quenching it. 

What a ghastly century was that of Gorgias who 
had never dined out. The brilliant men of his 
period, the sculptors who are the despair of our 
artists, the architects whom we can never equal, the 
philosophers and poets who have been models of 
all succeeding generations, the orators, statesmen, 
and soldiers whom subsequent history has never 
eclipsed, all were visitors during his long life to 
beautiful and artistic Corinth, and he might, at the 
dinners which were invariably given them, have en- 
joyed the pleasures of their society and left an 
autobiography of personal reminiscences of incalcu- 
lable value to posterity. 

I have met most of the distinguished men and 
women of my time in this and other countries, and 
with scarcely an exception the best I ever knew 
of them occurred at dinner. An evening with Glad- 
stone was a liberal education. He possessed the 
most comprehensive mind of his generation and was 
gifted with the most graphic power of expressing his 
opinions. A formal interview with him was of 
little value, but in the confidences and intimacies 

[49] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OP EIGHTY 

of a long dinner at a friend's house, Gladstone could 
be more eloquent, more impressive, and more de- 
lightful than in his best efforts in the House of 
Commons. It was possible on such occasions to 
study the workings of that marvelous mind and get 
an insight into the sources of his magnetic power. 

To read Browning's poems was one thing, but to 
hear Browning talk at dinner was much more hu- 
man, informing, and charming. He said to me that 
when, at the request of the government, the Duke 
of Sutherland gave a dinner to the Shah of Persia 
at Stafford House, he was one of the guests. 
In order to impress this semi-savage monarch, every- 
one was requested to wear all their regalia. The 
Frince of Wales and members of the royal family, 
the dukes, marquises, and earls came in all the 
medieval splendor of their rank and order, and with 
all their jewels, real and paste. Mr. Browning said 
that, having no rank, he came in the crimson 
gown of an honor man of Cambridge University. 
Diamonds did not impress the Shah, because the 
buttons on his coat were real stones as big as horse 
chestnuts. The ermine and tiaras produced no im- 
pression upon him, because he and his suite were 
arrayed in more barbaric splendor. But his wild eye 
roving around the table came upon this crimson 
Cambridge robe at the foot where, as a commoner, 
the poet sat. The Shah instantly said, "Who is 
that great man?" "Why, that is Mr. Browning." 
"What is he?" "He is a poet." "Command him 
to come here and sit beside me." So a royalty or 
a prime minister was displaced and the embarrassed 
poet was put beside the autocrat. The Shah said, 
"I understand you are a poet, a great poet," which 
Browning modestly admitted. "Well, then," he 
said, "I want you to stay here with me, because 

[50] 



TWENTY-SECOND BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

more than the fact that I am the supreme ruler 
of Persia, I am a great poet myself." Mr. Brown- 
ing assured me that the story was true ; also that the 
Shah said to the then Prince of Wales, afterwards 
King Edward VII, "This is a magnificent palace." 
The prince said, "Yes, this is the finest palace in 
Great Britain." "Well," said the Shah, "let me give 
you a little piece of advice. When one of my no- 
bility gets rich enough to live in a palace like this, 
I cut off his head and take what he has. It is very 
simple and saves a great deal of trouble." 

But the night will not permit an enumeration. 
I have learned more State secrets from Cabinet Min- 
isters abroad in the confidences of the dinner table 
than I could have had in years of residence, and, 
under similar circumstances, the armor of reserve 
has dropped from Presidents of the United States, 
and their troubles, their anxieties, their wishes, 
their ambitions, their friends and their enemies have 
been an open book. "Ah! but," says the philoso- 
pher who is eternally denouncing the opportunities 
of wealth, "dinners are all very well for you, but 
how about the rest of us?" Why, my dear sir, the 
dullest, most stupid and most borish dinner I ever 
attended cost one hundred dollars a plate, while my 
most delightful evenings have been with a bohemian 
coterie where a dollar was the limit. The cost of 
the dinner, the rarity of its wines, and the brand of 
its cigars are of no account unless about the table 
are men and women of mind, of individuality, of 
versatility, of something to give which is worth 
receiving, and a willingness to listen to the message 
which you think is worth delivering. 

Senator Hoar, who in his long, brilliant, and most 
distinguished career had met everybody worth know- 
ing, told me that no gathering, however small or 

[51] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

however large, equaled in wit and wisdom, in flashes 
of genius, in things always to be remembered and 
never to be forgotten, the weekly luncheons at 
Parker's in Boston, where Longfellow, Hawthorne, 
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Theodore Parker and others, 
and Judge Hoar, the brightest of them all, met for 
a weekday luncheon. 

Judge Robertson, of Westchester, and I were in- 
vited by Secretary of State Seward to dine with 
him in Washington on our way to the Republican 
National Convention which renominated President 
Lincoln. That dinner changed the Vice-President 
from Daniel S. Dickinson, of New York, to Andrew 
Johnson, of Tennessee, and made a different chap- 
ter in American history. 

The newspapers which tell us everything say that 
the present tariff and income tax bills were perfected 
at a dinner at the White House. This brings us 
in immediate and acute contact with the most in- 
teresting of current events. 

In my fifty-seven years in public and semi-public 
life I have participated in many political revolu- 
tions, and in none of them have these changes es- 
pecially of the tariff been received with so little 
excitement and scarcely a suggestion of passion. 
There are no editorials or flaming speeches predict- 
ing direful disasters, or indignation meetings resolv- 
ing that we are on the brink of financial and indus- 
trial ruin. These tariff propositions going as they 
do to the very foundation of our financial and indus- 
trial system, and the manner in which they are 
received, are high indications of that much abused 
word "Progress." We have become a deliberative 
and contemplative people. Without inherited 
prejudices or partisan bias, we can calmly weigh 
measures and policies and arrive at individual con- 

[52] 



TWENTY-SECOND BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

elusions as to results when they crystallize into 
law. We all recognize that at some time these 
theories must be tried. We have all recognized that 
at some time the theorists must have devolved upon 
them the responsibilities of government. There has 
been no period since the Civil War when experi- 
ments could be tried with less danger than now. 
The country never was so prosperous, employment 
was never so general, wages were never so high, 
the farmer was never so rich or receiving such re- 
turns for the product of his field and his live stock, 
the output of the manufactories was never so great, 
the expansion of our credit and the amount of 
our exchanges were never so large, and our imports 
and exports never reached such a volume. The fly 
in the amber, or, to put it more seriously, our ir- 
ritation and discontent under these otherwise happy 
conditions is the high cost of living. The laws 
which our new rulers are putting in force will 
affect equally all the people; therefore, it is the 
duty of all of us to wish them God speed and good 
luck. It is the hope of all of us that the realiza- 
tion of their dreams, which some of us have feared, 
will be in the line of their most sanguine hopes. 
Their problem is a difficult one. In simple form, 
it is how to reduce the cost of living without im- 
pairing opportunities of earning a living. In that 
is the whole crux of the situation. 

It has been our habit to touch lightly and if pos- 
sible informingly upon the things that have hap- 
pened since our last gathering. The Constitution, 
of the United States has not been amended in over 
one hundred years. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth 
Amendments, which were passed after the Civil War, 
were really not amendments, but simply declara- 
tions of principles which were in the Declaration 

[53] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

of Independence and in the spirit of the original 

instrument. 

But after over one hundred years of satisfaction 
with the Constitution, within this year two amend- 
ments have been added, one an income tax, the other 
for the election of United States Senators by the 
people. I am not going to discuss these measures. 
They are here to stay. But when the history of 
their passage comes to be written, it will be dis- 
closed that there are some curious phases of human 
nature. 

When the amendment to the Constitution of the 
United States for an income tax came before our 
New York Legislature, it was defeated by a mes- 
sage from Governor Hughes. That message did 
not oppose an income tax, but clearly stated that 
the needs of our commonwealth were growing so 
rapidly and the sources of State taxation were so 
limited that the income tax should be left to the 
States, and the general government, with its in- 
finite possibilities, could raise revenue from other 
sources. When the income tax amendment was un- 
der discussion in the Senate, I had a heart-to-heart 
talk with a group of Senators from the Western 
States who were urging its adoption. I said to 
them, "Our revenues at present are furnishing a 
surplus. We never will need to resort to this 
method of taxation except in a great emergency. 
Then why do you want it now?" Their answer was 
"Because with an income tax we can collect one- 
half the expenses of the government from your 
State of New York, and the other half from New 
England, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illi- 
nois." The exemption of four thousand dollars a 
year in the present bill shows that these gentlemen 
control this legislation, because very few in their 

[54] 



TWENTY-SECOND BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

States have an income of that size. It is an inter- 
esting question in legislation of this kind, since in 
no country in the world where they have an income 
tax is the exemption equal to one thousand dollars, 
whether in order to have the whole people alert, 
inquisitive, and critical upon the expenses of gov- 
ernment and in checking extravagance, the largest 
possible number should not have their attention 
called to those expenditures by contributing some- 
thing toward the support of the government. 

When the income tax amendment was before our 
New York Legislature, I said to a man who as 
much as any other controlled that body, "Did you 
think Governor Hughes was right?" He said, "Yes." 
I then told him what these Western Senators had 
said to me. He said, "That I believe, too." I said, 
"Then why are you urging the adoption of this 
amendment by our State?" His answer was, "Be- 
cause Bryan wants it." 

When the amendment for the election of the 
United States Senators by the people was so framed 
that the United States Government had the power 
to see that all the people voted and that none was 
disfranchised, I said to the Senators from the States 
where the negro is disfranchised, "Do you see danger 
of a force bill if this amendment is adopted? Don't 
you think that as crises arise, and they will arise, 
where a majority of the States feel that certain 
measures in which they are interested could be 
passed if all the people, including the negroes, in 
your States voted, they will pass laws under which 
the government will see that they do vote, at least 
for United States Senators?" They said, "Yes, 
we see all those dangers." I said, "Then why are 
you voting for it?" Their answer was, "Because 
Bryan wants it." 

[55] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

This brings us to a horizontal view of one of 
the paradoxes of our American life. We are rushing 
with unprecedented rapidity for us, for we are a 
conservative people, toward the breaking down of 
the safeguards which are in the Constitution against 
hasty and inconsiderate action by the people. We 
are proceeding upon the theory that leadership no 
longer does or ought to exist, that all matters should 
originate with and be decided upon by the people 
as a mass on the passion or emotion of the moment 
and without the intervention of representative 
bodies or interpretations by the courts, and yet there 
never was a time when leadership counted for so 
much as it does to-day. There never was a time 
when leaders asserted themselves with such con- 
fidence and autocratic authority. More than four 
millions of Republicans followed Colonel Roosevelt 
in the last campaign not because they wanted to 
break up the Republican party, not because they 
adopted all the doctrines of his platform or of his 
speeches, but because they believed in Roosevelt 
and wanted for President of the United States a 
strong, militant, aggressive, and audacious leader. 
The National Convention of the Democratic party 
at Baltimore was swayed by Mr. Bryan. It was 
recognized that the great mass of his party recog- 
nized him as a supreme leader whom they were 
willing to follow wherever he chose to go. For 
the first time in one hundred and twenty-three years 
the President of the United States leaves the Ex- 
ecutive Mansion and appears at the Capitol to 
impress upon the Legislative Branch of the Gov- 
ernment his views upon pending legislation. These 
are not symptoms, but facts. With all the shouting 
and the trumpeting for a pure democracy, the exac- 
tions of our busy, hurried, rapid, nervous life call for 

[56] 



TWENTY-SECOND BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

a leader in every department more than at any other 
period in our history. 

The same is true in the industrial disorders which 
are now so acute. In their more revolutionary 
phases they are governed by a leader with very few 
assistants, whose power is unlimited, whose au- 
thority is unquestioned. 

Another curious phase of this trend to pure de- 
mocracy is that its leaders are opposed to majorities. 
Ten per cent of the voters initiate a number of radi- 
cal measures. They are submitted to a referendum 
at the next election, and a plurality of the votes cast 
makes them laws or inserts them in the Constitu- 
tion. In the history of these referendums the vote 
has averaged about twenty per cent of the total vote 
at any election. The measures have been adopted 
by the petitioners who constitute one-half, and 
many times more than one-half of those voting car- 
rying the day because the majority of the electorate 
have not cast their ballots. When it is proposed that 
no law by referendum shall become a law and no 
amendment shall be attached to the Constitution 
unless it receives a majority of all the votes cast at 
the election when it is submitted, without exception 
the reformer cries "No," reforms must be carried not 
by the unintelligent mass, but by the few who 
understand the needs of the people. 

I believe in trade unions and trade organizations. 
In the railway world, I have been their best friend, 
but there is a new movement now progressing all 
over the world and forging to the front with us with 
lurid exhibitions of its power. As a student all my 
life of every idea which has captured any consider- 
able number of people, whether upon religious, or 
social, or industrial, or economic questions, I bought 
the book which gives the most authoritative and 

[57] 



ON" THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

vigorous exhibition of Syndicalism by one of its 
ablest and most eloquent writers. It is very inter- 
esting, though not yet very alarming, except in its 
fierce and bloody riots to compel other unions to 
join. He says, "We have in the United States to- 
day nearly five hundred thousand organized fighting 
soldiers. In the whole world we have seven millions. 
We are comrades with a common purpose. The cry 
of our army is 'No Quarter.' We want all you 
possess. We will be content with nothing less than 
all you possess. Here are our hands. They are 
strong hands. The able-bodied workers would not 
have to labor more than two or three hours every 
day to feed everybody, clothe everybody, house 
everybody and give fair measure of little luxuries to 
everybody." Then he goes on to say, "When all 
these things are accomplished, then all the world 
will be impelled to action — scientists formulating 
law, inventors employing law, artists and sculptors 
painting canvases and shaping clay, poets and states- 
men serving humanity by singing and by statecraft. 
Our intention is to destroy present-day society as a 
fact, and also to take possession of the world with all 
its wealth and machinery and government." 

Here are a few of the bunkers over which this 
army must successfully propel its bomb : There are 
about eight millions of people, men and women, in 
this country who own their own homes and will fight 
to retain them. There are over four millions who 
own their own farms, other millions who get their 
living from farms and none are so tenacious of their 
rights as the farmers. There are about eleven mil- 
lions who are engaged in various industries in a way 
that interests them to a point where they will not 
tamely surrender their rights in raising stock, or as 
florists, or horticulturists, or nurserymen. There are 

[58] 



TWENTY-SECOND BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

the millions of small shopkeepers everywhere whose 
living and the future for their families are in the 
goods in their stores. Our eyes are so blinded by the 
increase in the capitalization of great corporations 
like the steel or tobacco or sugar that we lose sight 
of the fact that there never were so many small 
manufacturers with limited capital, employing few 
men, among whom the proprietors are the hardest 
workers, scattered all over the United States. The 
foundations of our society are deep in the selfish 
interests, in the ambitions, in the hopes and in the 
affections for their offspring of ninety-nine per cent 
of our people. Beside all that is the national con- 
science with an irradicable sense of right and wrong, 
based upon respect for the property and lives and 
liberties of others, for which every church, every 
common school, every agency of education and in- 
struction, every fraternal lodge, is a recruiting 
station. 

Now the crux of that idea is that when this millen- 
nium has been brought around nobody will have to 
work over two hours in twenty-four. During the 
rest of the day everybody will be happy because in- 
dustrially occupying their time in creating, or mak- 
ing, or producing things which are useful and helpful 
to their fellows. A distinguished philosopher has 
said that the mainsprings of action are ambition, 
necessity and greed. It may be growing out of what 
happened in the Garden of Eden that effort requires 
a spur. Everyone of us knows that in our own ex- 
perience. There is not one at this table here to- 
night who would be what he is unless there had been 
a motive to accomplish something for himself. 
There is no truth more self-evident than that this 
selfishness has in it also the elements of patriotism. 
The man who forges ahead and in his advance 

[59] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

creates continually larger opportunities for others 
to get on is selfishly a climber and unselfishly a 
philanthropist. The curse of the youth of our coun- 
try is idleness. Our hooligans, our gang men, our 
gun men, our young criminals are all the products of 
idleness. The ambition of the boy at school is 
aroused first by competition with his fellows. As he 
advances to the high school or the college it is for 
the honors which can be achieved. I look back over 
sixty years of continuous effort and when I try to 
differentiate the causes of my health and happiness 
I come back always to work. I never yet knew an 
idle man who was a happy one. I mean an idle 
man who was such from choice. Every man I ever 
knew who was doing the best he could in the line of 
his talent and equipment and who became fond of 
his work, and who outside of his regular occupation 
had some fad which interested him, and who could 
on occasion play as hard as he worked, was healthy 
and happy himself and radiated happiness and in- 
spiration to everyone about him. 

We are all workingmen, but I have known thou- 
sands of what are known as laboring men; that is, 
those who earn a living by the work of their hands, 
who in their little gardens found repose and recre- 
ation, who in their church, or in their lodges, or in 
their social work, discovered never-ending sources 
of education in broad-mindedness, in higher ideals 
of citizenship and material, spiritual and intellectual 
advancement. 

It is an old charge that Republics are ungrateful. 
Perhaps that is a mistake and they are only forget- 
ful. I recall on this question three of my late col- 
leagues in the Senate who were among its most 
distinguished and useful members and are now in 
private life. 

[60] 



TWENTY-SECOND BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

When the case for the expulsion of Senator Lori- 
mer of Illinois was tried before the Committee on 
Privileges and Elections, a large majority of the 
Committee, though they knew that the newspapers 
generally demanded Mr. Lorimer's expulsion, and 
such was the sentiment of a majority of the people, 
yet acting as judges they could not find in the testi- 
mony sufficient warrant for a verdict against him. 

Senator Beveridge, one of the most brilliant Sena- 
tors of his term in the Senate, made a minority 
report and led the fight against Lorimer. He had 
often before proved himself to be an accomplished 
and brilliant debater, but he never was so able, 
resourceful and eloquent as in this battle. It was 
on the eve of his fight for a re-election to the Senate, 
and he and his friends felt that his reward was cer- 
tain. He made one of the most thorough and able 
canvasses of Indiana that any candidate ever did, 
and yet he was beaten. 

One of the most useful and able Senators in 
my time was Norris Brown of Nebraska. Mr. 
Brown believed that nine-tenths of the people of his 
State were in favor of a constitutional amendment 
for an income tax. He introduced the amendment 
and gave his time, energy and remarkable diplo- 
macy to secure its passage. I am quite certain 
from my own familiarity with the course of that leg- 
islation that, except for Mr. Brown's advocacy and 
support, the amendment would not have passed the 
Senate. When he came before his people for the 
approval of his course, he was beaten. 

My captivating friend, Jonathan Bourne of Ore- 
gon, was the author of most of the so-called reforms 
which have substituted the initiative, the referen- 
dum and the recall in Oregon for representative 
government and made the Governor and the Legis- 

[61] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

lature rubber stamps. In season and out of season, 
in the Senate and on the platform, and in the press, 
he portrayed the merits of this return to a pure de- 
mocracy and this recovery by the people from an 
obsolete system of their full rights. It is said that 
the placing of one of his greatest speeches on this 
question in the hands of every voter in the newly 
admitted State of Arizona led to the adoption of the 
most radical Constitution ever known. We all 
thought that whatever might happen to the rest of 
us, the call for re-election of Jonathan Bourne was 
to come with a unanimity never known before by 
a grateful people. Yet he was beaten. 

It is an interesting study in politics whether 
people are ungrateful, which I do not believe, or for- 
getful, which may happen, or whether their Tribune 
is not sometimes mistaken in thinking that he knows 
just what they w T ant. 

It has been the fashion in all ages for elderly peo- 
ple to lament the good old times and long for their 
recall. I do not share in any way in this desire. 
Solomon repudiated it, but then Solomon had more 
things than all his predecessors put together, includ- 
ing the family, and notwithstanding his hundreds 
of wives and thousands of concubines seems to have 
been very happy in his domestic relations. George 
Washington, on the other hand, thought the times 
as they were in the few years preceding his death 
were far worse than in earlier days and that they 
gave little hope for the future. As I look back over 
fifty-seven years of intense activity in many depart- 
ments of life, of a full share of both successes and 
failures, of hard knocks and compensating triumphs, 
of sorrows and joys, I come to the conclusion that 
while one year may be very bad, very miserable 
and very hopeless, yet take time by decades every 

[62] 



TWENTY-SECOND BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

ten years as a whole is infinitely better than all the 
preceding ones. 

Still, there are some things which seem to be per- 
manently lost, and are to be greatly regretted, for 
the enjoyment of life. One of them is conversation. 
The most charming volumes in history are made up 
of the conversation of agreeable talkers, but it is a 
general complaint that now conversation is a lost 
art. Some say it is because bridge whist has so 
shortened the dinner as to make it a feed instead of 
a function, and the craze for gambling in bridge 
whist has destroyed the freedom from care and elas- 
ticity of mind which are necessary for the inter- 
change of thought, of humor, of anecdote, of argu- 
ment and of raillery. We ought to be grateful, 
therefore, to anyone who can help in the restoration 
of that most charming, I almost say indispensable 
medium for the enjoyment of friends and acquain- 
tances — conversation. 

President Wilson is happily contributing to this 
end. He is advocating in a series of brilliantly writ- 
ten magazine articles what he calls "The New Free- 
dom." There is intense curiosity to know what the 
New Freedom means. This century and a quarter 
of unexampled and unparalleled growth and pros- 
perity under our Constitution and laws has given us 
the freedom so gloriously expressed in the Declara- 
tion of Independence. The Declaration of Inde- 
pendence was a philosophic statement of liberty, but 
the Constitution of the United States crystallized 
it into law. Jefferson's idea of liberty was that 
governments are based upon the individual, and that 
he must have the largest freedom with the fewest 
possible restrictions and the least possible legislation. 

President Wilson now has an opportunity of which 
he must avail himself of putting into law his "New 

[63] 



ON" THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

Freedom." We are told by the press, always so 
argus-eyed and so truthful, that at a conference at 
the White House a few days since the President 
agreed with the Chairmen of the Committees of the 
Senate and House of Representatives which have 
charge of appropriation bills that the one now pass- 
ing should have on it a rider exempting labor unions 
and farmers' associations from the restrictions and 
penalties of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. They 
get a liberty which no one else enjoys and become a 
privileged class. Now this is practical. It is a New 
Freedom. The first restraint ever put since the 
adoption of our Constitution in 1787 upon the ac- 
tivities of the individual when acting in great com- 
binations was by the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. 
Under prosecutions commenced by Cleveland, and 
continued by McKinley, Roosevelt, and Taft, these 
combinations have been relentlessly pursued because 
violating the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. Some of 
them have been put out of business and many of 
them have been dissolved. Decisions have been 
rendered in these cases which bring every great com- 
bination within the restrictions of this law. Now a. 
New Freedom is to be given by legislation to labor 
unions to do as they please and farmers to form asso- 
ciations and combinations for the marketing of their 
products. There is no suggestion that those who are 
engaged in iron or steel or tobacco or oil, in hats, 
shoes or clothing, or printing or anything else shall 
be relieved from the beneficent restrictions of the 
Sherman Acts in which I think most of us heartily 
believe. But labor unions and farmers can club to- 
gether, and by the processes which are so success- 
ful, in protection Germany called cartels; in free 
trade England called combinations and in protection 
America called trusts, can have the one in doing 

[64] 



TWENTY-SECOND BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

what it likes and the other in raising the price of 
bread and meat all the advantages of the freedom 
which everybody had before the Sherman Anti- 
Trust Law. Now this practical demonstration of 
the new freedom has led to more conversation every- 
where than anything which has occurred for many 
years. It is an enlightening, illuminating and in- 
structing conversation. It raises that one topic of 
intense interest at all times where everybody is af- 
fected: "Who will next receive the New Freedom?" 
Vice-President Marshall is a charming gentleman 
and a delightful speaker. I have heard him on many 
subjects, upon which he talks so well, and none bet- 
ter than upon brotherhood in Masonry, he and I 
being both brethren of the Thirty-third Degree. 
Two weeks ago to-night he attended the Jefferso- 
nian banquet in New York. He there delivered an 
address which was as novel as it was original. He 
claimed that the inheritance of property from one's 
parents is not a natural or a constitutional right, but 
purely a privilege granted by statute, and so to 
prevent accumulations of property all that the Leg- 
islature has to do is to repeal the laws of inherit- 
ance, and then whatever a person acquires will go 
not to his natural heirs, but to the State. Of course, 
if such a law was passed there would be no accu- 
mulations afterwards, because the main incentive 
for saving money is to take care of those who are 
dependent upon us — in other words, our wives and 
children. There would be people so masterful and 
with such genius in that line that they could not 
help making money. If they were not to have the 
pride and joy and comfort of its enjoyment in the 
benefits it would give after their death, they would 
squander it. The first line in which a man begins 
to squander money is self-indulgence; drunkenness 

[65] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

would become the attendant of prosperity, and the 
prohibition States, which are now doing fairly well 
in restricting the consumption of liquor, would dis- 
cover that their laws were universally nullified. The 
new view of life would be "let us eat, drink, and be 
merry for to-morrow we die." 

This speech was delivered on Saturday night two 
weeks ago and published in the Sunday morning- 
papers. It made conversation all over the United 
States. When I came out of church and met the 
people of all the other churches, I was stopped 
dozens of times, not to talk about the sermons which 
had been heard, but to discuss the speech of Vice- 
President Marshall. I lunched with some friends 
and dined with others that day, and both functions 
were prolonged far beyond the usual time by an ani- 
mated discussion of Brother Marshall's deliverance. 
If Eugene Debs had said this, it would have passed 
unnoticed, because expected. It is the unexpected 
which inspires conversation. So from the new Vice- 
President of the United States it became a matter 
of interesting talk in every gathering, private or 
public. 

Well, these things have helped in bringing into 
activity again the almost lost art of conversation. 
Still, these subjects are not so fine as those which 
prevailed in the good old times. We used to long 
for a new novel by Dickens or Thackeray, and talk 
over the old ones until the new ones came, and then 
the new ones until others were published, until 
David Copperfield, Micawber, Captain Cuttle, Jack 
Bunsby, Dora, Becky Sharp, and Colonel Newcome 
were intimate members of our families. They in- 
spired and irradiated the home. We eagerly dis- 
cussed Hawthorne's latest novels, and what Whittier, 
Lowell, Emerson and Doctor Parker, Doctor Storrs 

[66] 



TWENTY-SECOND BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

or Henry Ward Beecher had contributed to the wis- 
dom and enjoyment of the world. John Stuart Mill 
and Herbert Spencer had their audiences and their 
admirers, and the Shakespeare and Browning socie- 
ties found opportunities in every hamlet in the 
country. I am at a loss to know why there are no 
writers of equivalent reputation and equivalent con- 
sideration contributing now to the cordiality and 
camaraderie of us all, or why we carry the shop 
everywhere, and talk of either what we want or what 
we have or what the other fellow possesses and how 
he got it. It is very depressing. 

But, my friends, I do not despair. On my doctrine 
of decades I isolate this ten years. I avoid calamity 
howlers. I expel from my reading desk and my mind 
the preachers of disorder or destruction or despair. 
I place my trust, my hope, my optimism in that fine, 
discriminating, cordial, loving association of the 
people with each other and of their trust in and cour- 
age for the rights and the liberties of all. 



[67] 



Speech at the Annual Dinner of the University- 
Club, Washington, D. C, February 27, 1911. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: 

As a university man, to-night seems to me some- 
thing like the gala day in the Coliseum at Rome. 
If you can imagine this room to be the Coliseum, 
and the President of the United States as the Em- 
peror in his box, then Carter and I, and other Sena- 
tors and Members of Congress, who are in the same 
situation, pass before him like the gladiators of old 
saluting with the cry, "Nos morituri te salutamus" 
— "We who are about to die salute you." I only 
turn the Latin into English because most of you 
have been out of college more than ten years. 

Senator Carter and I are among the number of 
the elect and the saints for whom this is the last 
week on the political planet. On Saturday we ex- 
pire. The catastrophe suggests both sorrow and hi- 
larity — sorrow for what we lose and hilarity for 
what we escape. The angel of political death ap- 
pears in the Senate in these clays in sundry dis- 
guises. At one time he takes the form of the amend- 
ment to the Constitution for the direct election of 
Senators; at another the resolution relating to the 
seat of Mr. Lorimer; at another the Canadian reci- 
procity. He remarks on each of these propositions 
to those who are still in the ring, "Whichever way 
you vote you are mine." A committee of farmers 
representing the granges and agricultural societies 
of the State of New York called upon me and said, 
"If you vote for this Canadian treaty you need 
never expect any political favor which the united 

[68] 



UNIVERSITY CLUB SPEECH 

farmers of the State of New York can prevent your 
receiving, but if you vote against it you have our 
united support for the rest of your life." Then a 
representative of the newspaper publishers came in. 
He said, "If you don't vote for this treaty, by edi- 
torial denunciation, paragraphical sniping and reper- 
torial misrepresentation, we will make your life a 
burden and retire you to permanent oblivion." 
"Well," I said, "suppose I do vote for it. What will 
you do then?" The representative said, "Then we 
will never mention you." 

The Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Represen- 
tatives has a collection of poetry for the use of Mem- 
bers delivering memorial addresses on deceased 
Members. One used the other day, I fear, might 
represent the tears over retiring statesmen: "Here 
lies the body of my dear wife. My scalding tears 
cannot bring her to life. Therefore, I weep." 

How happy was the condition of the representa- 
tive of the people in the good old days. On the 
questions prevailing in that period there were no 
divisions within the party, no questions upon which 
the Senator or the Member could not follow the 
leader with safety and devotion, while in these days 
party lines are becoming so indistinct that the elec- 
torate which gives rousing majorities one year for 
one side gives equally rousing majorities the next 
year for the other side. But the university man has 
a satisfaction which cannot be enjoyed by any out- 
side the order. Parties may come and parties may 
go; the political question of to-day may seem vital 
for the republic, and be forgotten to-morrow; but as 
time goes on and age mellows, aspiration and enthu- 
siasm for other things fade and become nebulous, 
but the old campus, the old buildings, the old fence, 

[69] 



ON" THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

the old professors, the old associations grow fresher, 
more beautiful, more satisfactory with the years. 

We are happy in having with us here to-night one 
of the men who constitute that enormous aggrega- 
tion of men called "New Yorkers." They come from 
every state in the Union to our city to take their 
chances where failure is hopeless but rewards are 
great. The one who succeeds in his profession, his 
business, his calling of any kind, in this great town, 
is preeminently the survival of the fittest and equiv- 
alent to a New Yorker by birth. So this young Texan 
Martin Littleton, coming unknown and unheralded 
to the metropolis, speedily won a rare position in 
the forefront of a crowded profession, and then, turn- 
ing to politics, reversed the time-honored majority 
in the district in which resides ex-President Roose- 
velt. And yet, before he has taken his seat in the 
Lower House, he confidently announces his candi- 
dacy for the Senate. We are students of the classics 
and we love those acts of heroism of the ancient 
times which have been the inspiration of all the 
ages. The three hundred at Thermopylae, Curtius 
jumping into the pit to save his country, Horatius 
holding the bridge, are familiar examples. So, when 
the Democratic Party, torn asunder by faction and 
threatened with annihilation by internal strife, 
seemed on the eve of destruction, friend Littleton 
heroically and unselfishly sent word to the leaders in 
the Legislature at Albany, "I will make the sacrifice. 
Take me for Senator." Certainly I should feel 
highly honored to have my brilliant young friend as 
my successor. 

An incident, both picturesque and interesting, 
which took place a few days ago in this senatorial 
contest at Albany happily and favorably illustrates 
the honor of men in public life. Muckraking maga- 

[70] 



UNIVERSITY CLUB SPEECH 

zines, yellow journals and Chautauqua lecturers 
have been for years preaching to the people that the 
public life of the United States is the most decadent 
that exists anywhere in the world. They have suc- 
ceeded in producing a widespread distrust of the rep- 
resentatives of the people, both in State Legislatures 
and in Congress. It is a distrust so deep-seated 
that I doubt if it is ever removed. Everyone who 
knows anything about progress in legislation knows 
the enormous improvement which has taken place 
both in the personnel of representatives and in the 
work which they have performed since the Civil 
War. The lobby which used to fill the halls of Con- 
gress has now practically disappeared. In the New 
York Legislature the Democrats have a large major- 
ity on joint ballot. They are responsible for the or- 
der of business. They placed upon the record a 
rule that no pairs should be recognized unless they 
were recorded with the clerk. It so happened that 
a week ago when the roll was called in the joint As- 
sembly for the election of United States Senator it 
was discovered that there were so many Democratic 
absentees that the Republicans had a clean majority. 
The majority leader claimed that the absentees were 
paired individually and without his knowledge and 
asked that those pairs be recognized. He was in- 
formed that under his own rule, which had been 
adopted, those pairs were illegal. He admitted that 
they were illegal, but begged the minority to rec- 
ognize the pairs, which were made individually 
without notice and in violation of the rule, as a 
gentleman's agreement. Here is an interesting ques- 
tion of ethics. If a legislator makes a private agree- 
ment to violate a standing rule of the legislative 
body to which he belongs and for which he voted, is 
that violation an agreement of a gentleman? 

[71] 



ON" THE THKESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

Though the minority had it absolutely in their 
power to elect a Senator and might have demanded 
that the game should be played according to the 
rules, they decided that, notwithstanding rules and 
orders, the gentleman's agreement should be rec- 
ognized. I do not believe that business men, having 
the legal right, would have yielded under such con- 
ditions. I know that no lawyer responsible for the 
interests of his clients would have permitted his op- 
ponent to gain such an advantage. And I state this 
only to show that in public life and among public 
men there is the very highest and most sensitive 
honor. As I have been the candidate of the mi- 
nority and receiving their united votes since the bal- 
loting began, I would have been the recipient of 
this remarkable happening, but I rejoice exceedingly 
that my friends did not take the advantage which 
was legally in their power. The people had elected 
a Legislature which was Democratic by a large ma- 
jority, and they had the right to expect a Democratic 
Senator. 

Washington has changed marvelously since I first 
came here twelve years ago. It is filling up with 
the palaces of the men who have made fortunes all 
over the world in ventures of vast magnitude. These 
palaces are going up in all the great cities of the 
country. Nine-tenths of their owners boast that 
they are self-made men and sneer at the products of 
the colleges and universities. In an active life of 
fifty-five years with opportunities to meet more 
people than almost any man alive, and know some- 
thing of their careers, I have come to the conclusion 
that it is only the few who are exceptionally gifted 
who can excel those who have had the benefits of a 
liberal education. No one except those who have 
been privileged to enjoy them can appreciate the in- 

[72] 



UNIVERSITY CLUB SPEECH 

finite pleasures there are in the advantages which 
the old institutions give. I remember one wonderful 
man whose learning was limited to the three R's, but 
who had a world-wide reputation for success, who 
would have given a large part of his vast fortune if 
he could have enjoyed a college training. But I 
knew another, and I can see his shiny, bald head 
now, who was always speaking contemptuously of 
the men of the schools. One day he said to an emi- 
nent professor of physiology, "What has all your 
education done for you, sir? See where I am and 
what I have, and I am a self-made man." "Well," 
said the professor, "while you were making yourself 
why didn't you put some hair on your head?" I 
remember another who angered a famous painter 
with the same remark, and received this retort, "I 
wish you would let me paint on the top of your head 
the picture of a rabbit." "Why a rabbit," said the 
astonished millionaire. "Because," said the artist 
"somebody might mistake it for a hare." 

Every American boy starts with a quick mind. 
Afterward it is a matter of development. I heard 
this story the last time I was in New Haven. When 
the British Ambassador was delivering his very able 
addresses to the university he had a discussion on 
the street one day with President Hadley as to the 
brightness of the street boy in London and America. 
President Hadley said, "Let's test it with this new- 
sie." The President said, "Boy, can you tell us what 
time it is by your nose?" to which the boy answered, 
"My nose isn't running this morning." 

Nothing impresses me more than the evolution 
of American democracy. We started with very little 
power in the executive and all power in Congress, 
when all the rest of the world were under autocratic 
governments of the kings, and we were afraid of the 

[73] 



ON" THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

king. In the development of a century and a quar- 
ter all the rest of the world, especially England and 
France, have come to the absolute supremacy of the 
legislative branch and the retirement of the exec- 
utive, while we have evoluted the other way. So, 
at that early period our English and Scotch ances- 
tors believed in three and four hour sermons in the 
pulpit and whole-night speeches in Parliament. 
Now, in the condensation on the other side the lead- 
ing authorities of the Church of England propose 
to condense the Ten Commandments. They take 
the longest one which states what you shall not 
covet, and, eliminating everything else, leave only 
"Thou shalt not covet." If this rule could be ap- 
plied to the United States Senate its business 
would be finished and its sessions ended in three 
months. As it is now, we have statesmen whose 
great ambition is to have their posterity point to 
the Congressional Record and say, "My father 
filled more pages of that wonderful publication than 
any man of his time." It would be an enormous 
benefit to many a man and a tremendous relief to 
the world if such a one was only gifted with the 
feminine instinct of propriety, an instinct which 
never fails, which is always correct, though in the 
matter of personal adornment very expensive. In 
the recent excavations which have been made on 
the site of ancient Babylon they have come across, 
in the library of Nebuchadnezzar, where the books 
were stenciled on clay and baked, the Babylonian 
story of the Garden of Eden. And this publication 
proves, that when man and woman first appeared 
upon earth, she had this instinct of propriety for 
herself as well as for man. This story says that 
after the accident of the apple, when Eve retired 
and wove a dress for him and herself of the leaves 

[74] 



UNIVERSITY CLUB SPEECH 

in the Garden, that Adam put his around his neck 
and she exclaimed, "Great Heaven, Adam, that is 
not the place to wear it!" 

It has been my privilege to serve under Presidents 
McKinley, Roosevelt and Taft. McKinley had 
spent twenty years in Congress and he looked to the 
Senators and Members exclusively for guidance, ad- 
vice and help. Roosevelt had a genius for gauging 
the popular current beyond any of our public men. 
He had invisible wires which reached every part of 
the country and every department of industry, and 
through them he gathered, long in advance, the 
trend of public opinion, and then, with fife and 
drum, and cymbal and horn, became its leader and 
carried its purposes into effect. In these troublous 
times there is fluidity of parties, and more than ever 
before in the history of the country great corpora- 
tions and great aggregations of wealth on the one 
side and agitation and unrest on the other, are creat- 
ing most critical and dangerous situations. It is a 
period that calls for patience, for high courage, for 
judicial fairness and for those rare and indefinable 
qualities which command the confidence of the peo- 
ple. Nowhere in such a crisis could the combination 
of culture and experience be found equal to the task 
except in the product of our American universities. 
Happily for the country and happily for the people, 
one of the finest fruits of liberal culture, one of the 
best results of the college, a man who has carried 
the spirit of his Alma Mater into every function of 
life and every office that he has held, is our Presi- 
dent, William H. Taft. 



[75] 



Speech at the Dinner given by the Republican 
Club of New York to Senator Depew upon his 
Retirement from U. S. Senate, April 7, 1911. 

My Friends : 

When a man enters upon a great office he has 
doubts; when he retires he still has doubts; but if 
his neighbors, among whom he has lived and who 
have known him always, gather to greet, to welcome, 
to honor and to congratulate, all doubts are re- 
moved. Any one properly constituted regards the 
consummation of a successful life to be happiness. 
Happiness is not an accident nor purely a question 
of temperament and environment, nor can it be se- 
cured by cultivation. It is a gift, both from within 
and without; from without, in unselfish friendship; 
from within, in appreciation and gratitude. 

There is a vast difference between going out with 
your party or being beaten within your party. For 
a Republican to be stepped on by the elephant is 
death, but to be kicked by the Democratic donkey 
means only a period in the hospital. 

The saying that "a prophet is not without honor 
save in his own country" may have been true in 
earlier days, but is not applicable to our times. 

Under our system of government, which, unlike 
the English, confines a representative to his home 
district or state, no one can secure and hold public 
office unless he is held in honor in his own country. 
If strong at home, if holding continuously the re- 
spect and confidence of his fellow citizens, storms of 
detraction, or hatred, or enmity from other states, 
are powerless to disturb him. 

[76] 



WELCOMED HOME BY THE REPUBLICAN CLUB 

I have just closed twelve years in the United 
States Senate, very eventful ones hi legislation and 
very happy ones to me. When Tennyson sang "Bet- 
ter fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay" he 
did not possess American experience. In the fifty 
years since 1861 we have passed through a crisis 
involving the existence of the country or its whole 
future every decade. The civil war for the preserva- 
tion of the Union, reconstruction for the permanent 
peace and perpetuity of the Union, the defeat of 
fiat money, the resumption of specie payments, the 
silver craze, the establishment of the gold standard 
and the experiment with colonial government were 
all crises full of peril, full of history and of grave 
consequences to the republic. I have experienced all 
there was to feel by an active participation in each 
of those troublous periods. 

It has been to me one supreme lesson in the abso- 
lute indestructibility of our institutions and liberties. 
Every citizen passes through a period of seeing in 
the immediate future the destruction of his country. 
But while believing this prophecy, if you have seen 
several times the period set for the cataclysm pass 
by and nothing happen, predictions of evil cease to 
disturb your peace of mind. I have a letter of my 
great-grandfather's, written during Jefferson's ad- 
ministration. He was a judge and a Federalist. 
This letter to his son-in-law, a distinguished lawyer 
of the same faith, says: "With Jefferson as Presi- 
dent, an infidel in religion and a French revolution- 
ist in politics, I see, perhaps not in my time, but in 
yours, the end of religion and liberty in these United 
States." Several generations have come and gone 
since the old gentleman left to his children this 
grewsome legacy. Each generation has found the 
country enjoying larger liberties, greater power and 

[77] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

prosperity and opportunities for all undreamed of 
by their predecessors. 

There will be crises in the future, occurring prob- 
ably every decade, perils from the clashing of labor 
and capital, perils from the growth of socialistic sen- 
timent, perils of the dangers to all property in the 
effort to control great corporations and wealth with- 
out checking progress and employment, perils from 
the mob spirit and perils from autocracy. 

England, handicapped, as we protectionists think, 
by free trade, is trying to keep as much as possible 
of her former position as the workshop of the world 
by encouraging industrial combinations. This is 
done to reduce the cost of production. The German 
states, as in the famous potash case, are themselves 
interested in various industries. They form close 
syndicates with their competitors in the same line 
of business to maintain prices at home and utilize 
their government-owned railroads and subsidized 
mercantile marine to so lower charges for transpor- 
tation as to command foreign markets. Our legis- 
lation forbids all combinations, the good as well as 
the bad, and our task, as we extend our commerce, 
is to adjust our conditions for competition with other 
nations. 

We as yet have not fully grasped our position as a 
world power and the duties it imposes, nor have we 
arrived at a settled policy which is demanded by 
foreign governments under the responsibilities as- 
sumed in maintaining the Monroe Doctrine. Judg- 
ing the future by the past, the pendulum will prob- 
ably swing our way until the common sense of the 
people checks its dangerous progress, and then poli- 
ticians, with ears to the ground catching the chang- 
ing sentiment, will eagerly lead in the opposite 
direction. So, if we who are here to-night are per- 

[78] 



WELCOMED HOME BY THE EEPTJBLICAN CLUB 

mitted to visit these scenes a hundred years from 
now, we will find conditions bettered, opportunities 
larger and greater marvels brought about by inven- 
tions, and the game of politics played possibly with 
the same cards and with similar results to those 
which have characterized our period. Between 
political crises and political stagnation, it is better 
for the public good that the storm should rage and 
some temporary damage be done, for a wreck here 
and there upon the shore is nothing to the life- 
giving gale which lashes the ocean into fury and 
sends the beneficent rainclouds over the earth and 
clarifies sea and air of impurities. 

In rendering an account of stewardship a cata- 
logue would be wearisome, but I rejoice in many 
things in which I was permitted to participate, and 
for which I had opportunity to render such assist- 
ance as was in my power. The carrying into effect 
of the gold standard and the establishment upon a 
firm basis of national and individual credit was 
one of the achievements of my period. 

Before the conservation of natural resources had 
become a question of any importance, as chairman 
of the committee having charge of such matters in 
my earlier years, I became convinced of the necessity 
of turning the Appalachian range into a national 
forest. The eight states through which the range 
runs could do nothing individually. The cutting off 
of the trees led to the washing away of the under- 
growth and humus which held the rainfall and dis- 
tributed it beneficially through the valleys. The 
floods which followed the loss of the forests de- 
stroyed annually twenty million acres of fertile 
land. The tragedy of the destruction of twenty 
million acres a year, with all their possibilities 
for settlement and happy homesteads, was be- 

[79] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

yond language to describe. I prepared a bill and 
passed it through the Senate. It took ten years 
of continuous effort to get it through the House of 
Representatives, but in this last session, including 
also the White Mountains, it became a law. The in- 
clusion of the White Mountains was due to the ef- 
forts of Senator Brandegee of Connecticut. 

Reform by legislation is always slow and tedious 
and requires continuous and persistent effort to 
succeed. The government had never yielded to a 
law which would make it liable to those engaged 
in its service in dangerous employments for similar 
compensation for death and injury to those which 
were universal in industrial pursuits. For years 
that bill had appeared and annually been buried. 
President Roosevelt and Secretary of War Taft 
placed it in my hands, and in the last hours of the 
closing session of the Sixty-first Congress I suc- 
ceeded in passing it and sending it to the President. 
I am prouder of that than of many measures of 
country-wide interest in whose perfection I partici- 
pated. 

The Senate is a comparatively small body with a 
membership which runs for six years, and with re- 
election for another six. Associations and intimacies 
permit a member to secure for his state things of 
importance which a young member can never gain. 
I was assigned immediately upon entering to the 
great committee on commerce. This committee 
passes upon all measures relating to the rivers and 
harbors of the country and the improvements of the 
waterways. I became deeply impressed with the 
scheme which that eminent senator, Senator Frye 
had prepared for Ambrose channel. I joined with 
Senator Frye to make this project a success. None 
of us dreamed at that time that mercantile marine 

[80] 



WELCOMED HOME BY THE REPUBLICAN CLUB 

engineering would produce leviathans of 50,000 tons, 
and yet with a foresight which was more of hope 
than of intelligence, we carried to perfection a 
channel into the docks of the port of New York 
of sufficient width and depth to accommodate and 
secure for our harbor those marvelous carriers of 
the sea. 

The barge canal comes to the Hudson River 
twelve miles above the improvement which permits 
the floating of its larger craft. Last year near the 
close of the session the engineers and a citizens' 
committee came to me with the statement that un- 
less the government at an expense of between six 
and seven millions of dollars improved that twelve 
miles the barge canal was a failure — it ended no- 
where. 

Senators are clamoring for appropriations for 
every river and creek in the country. When most of 
the states are jealous of New York, to secure an ap- 
propriation of this kind in the last stages of a ses- 
sion or at any other stage is purely a matter of per- 
sonal relations with senators. I pleaded for, and 
secured, the preliminary appropriation from my as- 
sociates, more than upon its merits, on the state- 
ment that it was absolutely essential for my re- 
election. There again comes in the personal equa- 
tion, for as a rule brother senators will do much to 
retain among them one of their number. 

In the same way, when every city, village and 
hamlet in the country was howling for public build- 
ings and lifting the dome of the capitol with the 
cry that New York had been petted and fed at 
their expense, I secured the two uptown postoffices 
which are to cost between three and four millions 
each. 

And in the same way and for the same reasons 

[81] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

and by the same pleas, though the Secretary of the 
Navy might cry economy and financiers protest, I 
secured for the Brooklyn navy-yard one of the new, 
mighty dreadnoughts, giving employment in that 
yard to over 4,000 men, supporting 4,000 families 
for the next two years. And of the $24,000,000 
which have been appropriated for the harbors and 
lake coasts of our state during my term, I venture 
to say that much of it has come because of my con- 
tinuance on the committee through which those 
appropriations must pass. 

During my twelve years we have nearly settled 
the railway question and taken it out of politics by 
the Roosevelt railway rate bill, the Elkins anti-re- 
bate bill, and the Taft railroad bill of the last ses- 
sion. I believe that when the results of this legisla- 
tion are worked out from their present crudities, 
and there always will be crudities in the beginning 
of new administrations, that there will come greater 
benefits to the public and more security to railway 
investors and efficiency of railway management. 

Notwithstanding the opposition of our savings 
banks, which I thought unwise, I did my best for 
the postal savings banks law, believing it to be the 
best for the country and that it would keep here 
the $100,000,000 a year now sent abroad by our 
foreign population because they do not trust our 
banks. 

I have always supported the merchant marine 
subsidy, and regret that it did not become a law and 
that our people are now giving $200,000,000 a year 
for freight to foreign shipping, and that American 
ships are not the carriers of American trade all over 
the world. American ships with American officers 
would be active agents for the extension of our mar- 
kets while foreigners are necessarily hostile. We 

[82] 



WELCOMED HOME BY THE REPUBLICAN CLUB 

are the second naval power, and yet the other great 
naval powers look upon us as of little account be- 
cause in time of war we have no mercantile marine 
for auxiliary cruisers, or colliers for our fighting ma- 
chines and they cannot stay two weeks away from 
shore. 

Owing to abundant experience from annual visits 
abroad for many years, I became convinced that 
there is a necessity for housing our diplomats, as 
other nations do, in the capitals of other countries. 
I early commenced advocating this, and regard it as 
a happy result for the dignity and prestige of the 
United States that a beginning was made in this 
Congress by an appropriation for this purpose. 

As chairman of the committee on Pacific Islands 
and Porto Rico, there came to me most interesting 
experiences in the efforts to solve the serious prob- 
lem presented by governing the Philippine islands, 
Hawaii and Porto Rico. Many minds have been at 
work and many men continually laboring to solve 
these problems. It is a source of congratulation 
that peace and prosperity in the Philippine islands 
and in Hawaii and in Porto Rico are demonstrations 
of the wisdom which has created out of no experi- 
ence of our own a beneficent colonial policy for our 
dependencies. 

It is a tribute to the seat which I have occupied 
for the last twelve years that the Democratic party, 
with 32 majority in the legislature, was unable by its 
utmost efforts, though working day and night for 
74 days, to fill it until the Republican minority gave 
them help. A seat in the United States Senate is 
worthy of any man's ambition. 

"Why the Senate?" asked a French critic of 
Thomas Jefferson at the time of the French revo- 
lution. 

[83] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

"Because," said the great statesman and author 
of the Declaration of Independence, "it is like the 
saucer to the tea cup; when the tea is too hot to 
drink with safety, it can be cooled off in the saucer." 

The Senate has been called the Millionaires' Club, 
and yet with its ninety- two members a majority 
have not a competence outside of their salary, and 
not over ten per cent have reached the millionaire 
mark. Seven senators died recently. One started 
as a poor boy, and in developing the mineral re- 
sources of his own state became a millionaire, but 
the joint assets of the other six did not amount to 
$200,000, and three left practically nothing. This 
is a fair average of the financial condition of the 
Senate. 

There are several kinds of senators. The most 
valuable are those who seldom appear in the "Rec- 
ord," but work night and day in the committee 
rooms and on the floor in the perfecting of good 
measures and in defeating bad ones, and those who 
"Think that day lost whose low descending sun views 
from thy hand no noble action done," the noble ac- 
tion being some more or less interesting remarks in 
the next morning's "Congressional Record." 

There has been much criticism both at home and 
abroad upon the unlimited debate permitted in the 
Senate. During the sixty-first Congress, which has 
just closed, there were 43,921 bills introduced and 
only 810 became laws. I believe in the Jeffersonian 
doctrine of the least possible legislation, and I think 
that is in accord with the best sentiment of the 
country. Many and many of them died because un- 
limited debate left no time for consideration. 

During my twelve years' experience I know of no 
measure of importance which has failed because the 
Senate has no rules to limit debate, no closure, no 

[84] 



WELCOMED HOME BY THE REPUBLICAN CLUB 

previous question. If a measure is worthy, means 
are found before it is lost to bring a minority to 
consent to its passage. After twelve years of experi- 
ence and much study and thought, I believe it would 
be unfortunate to change the custom of the Senate. 

There have been several filibusters in the Senate 
in my time where a small minority endeavored to 
defeat, by using up the time between the commence- 
ment of debate and final adjournment, already 
agreed to by both Houses, some measure desired by 
a large majority. Physical exhaustion counts con- 
tinually against a filibuster. But more than that, 
no man has sensations so numb and feelings so dead 
and sensibilities so far lost as to withstand for any 
lengthened period the ill-concealed anger and con- 
tempt, and ultimately disgust, of his associates. 

A senator engaged in a filibuster is an interesting 
mental and psychological study. I have rarely heard 
one who could go along for more than two hours 
without returning to the beginning and traversing 
the same ground, and after doing this several times 
he goes back and over the ground in practically the 
same language, like a cat pursuing its own tail. 
That speech never appears in the "Record" until 
several weeks afterward, and then is edited to the 
limit, so the world never gathers its inanities, its 
banalities and its repetitions. 

The Senate stands by its traditions. One hundred 
years ago every man over sixty took snuff. Because 
of this custom, snuffboxes were placed on the Demo- 
cratic and Whig, and then the Democratic and Re- 
publican, sides. These snuffboxes are still filled 
every morning. The snuff has been unused for 
years, but not long since some quack started the 
idea, during a recent attack of influenza, that snuff 
would cure it. If the influenza keeps up, the habit 

[85] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

may return and with it the old red bandana to con- 
ceal the enormities of the practice. 

The most confirmed result in my fifty-four years 
of public and semi-public life is a belief in party 
organization. It has its evils, as everything human 
does, but they can always be cured or they cure 
themselves. I believe that good legislation and pro- 
gressive legislation come from there being in the 
country two great political parties, nearly evenly 
divided, so evenly that the mistakes of one lead to 
the triumph of the other. I tried insurgency early 
in life and got over it immediately. It was when I 
went off with other Republicans in support of 
Greeley. So our friends who so blithely claim that 
insurgency is a brand new invention of their own 
are practicing something which is very, very old. 

An insurgent becomes regular when he and his 
friends secure a majority. The planet Saturn had 
eight satellites, and astronomers tell us that the 
rings of Saturn are kept in place by the regular and 
methodical movement of these satellites around the 
planet in one direction. But every once in a while 
astronomers for hundreds of years have noticed a 
disturbance of the rings which they were unable to 
explain. The enormous telescope provided by Mr. 
Carnegie has penetrated this mystery. It has found 
that there is a ninth satellite which moves in and 
out among the others, but in the opposite direction, 
always producing a disturbance and threatening 
a dangerous collision. They cannot find that it con- 
tributes anything but trouble to the stability of 
Saturn's place in the heavenly universe. 

The astronomers here named this insurgent in the 
planetary system Phoebe. We will always have 
Phoebes, contrarily minded, moving in the opposite 
direction and colliding with the majority, but in the 

[86] 



WELCOMED HOME BY THE REPUBLICAN CLUB 

general economy of our political system they some- 
times produce a healthy shaking up. 

Another fundamental among political principles 
which experience has confirmed is representative 
government. There is no doubt that an enthusias- 
tic and able propaganda against representative gov- 
ernment by appealing to the sentiment called the 
people's will has made great progress. There is no 
doubt that it has discredited state legislatures and 
Congress. It has led in many states to the initia- 
tive, the referendum and the recall. It claims, in 
its extreme phase, that government can only be 
popular when the actual meeting of the mob takes 
the place of the deliberations of the legislative body 
and decisions of the courts. 

The man who acts as his own lawyer loses his 
property; as his own doctor, loses his life; as his 
own architect, lives in an unsanitary building; as 
his own engineer, drives over a bridge which falls 
into the stream. As life grows more intense in its 
demands upon people in every department of work, 
they must concentrate their minds on their industry 
if they would succeed in their chosen pursuit. The 
people know that with these conditions, and with 
the greatest intelligence among the masses, to pro- 
vide measures of government and principles of jus- 
tice is absolutely impossible. 

They can select men, their neighbors, those who 
are willing to serve and who are able to do this work 
for them, and then judge of the capability and the 
intelligence of their representatives, as they do of 
the work of their engineer and their lawyer and their 
doctor, by results. It is to the credit of our institu- 
tions that while every other country has changed in 
its fundamentals, we live after one hundred and 
twenty-five years under the same constitution, prac- 

[87] 



ON THE THEESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

tically unchanged and with a liberty and prosperity 
and promise for the future which are magnificent 
testimonies to the wisdom of the fathers. 

It was my privilege as Secretary of the State of 
New York at the time to be brought in close rela- 
tions with President Lincoln and his cabinet and the 
leading members of Congress, and I have known with 
more or less intimacy every President and nearly 
every public man of national reputation since. I 
became a senator under McKinley and have served 
under Roosevelt and Taft. McKinley had passed 
his life in the House of Representatives. He had 
the profoundest reverence for the legislative branch. 
He never introduced by message or otherwise any 
of the great measures of his administration without 
long and frequent consultation with senators and 
congressmen. I was consulted in regard to all of 
them in their preparation and presentation, and 
afterward in advocating them upon the floor, and 
this was the experience, I think, of most of his own 
party and of the opposition. This gave McKinley 
a hold upon Congress which few, if any, of his pre- 
decessors had ever possessed. 

I can say that as a senator from his own state I 
had exceptionally pleasant relations with President 
Roosevelt. 

I believe that one of the most misunderstood of 
our Presidents is President Taft. His life has been 
judicial and never one of political strife, and so he 
looks upon questions as a judge, and not from the 
viewpoint of a politician as all men brought up in 
political life must. It never occurs to him what may 
be the effect of a measure upon his own political 
fortunes. I believe that as President Taft's meas- 
ures are better understood, his unselfish patriotism 
and devotion to the public service better known 

[88] 



WELCOMED HOME BY THE REPUBLICAN CLUB 

among the people, that he will grow in popular 
favor, so that when the national Republican con-, 
vention meets in 1912 there will be but one name 
before it, that of William Howard Taft. 

I highly appreciate the presence here to-night of 
that distinguished citizen of our State, the Vice- 
President of the United States. After twenty-two 
years of most useful service in the House of Repre- 
sentatives, his elevation to the second place in our 
government was a merited promotion. I have 
studied many presiding officers of the Senate. As 
that body has few rules and resents any check, the 
duties of the Chair are difficult and delicate to a 
degree. But, with his large experience, his intimate 
knowledge of parliamentary law and Senate prece- 
dents, his wonderful tact and uniform good nature, 
Vice-President James S. Sherman makes one of the 
best, if not the best, presiding officer the Senate ever 
had. 

And now, my friends, we are all New Yorkers. 
Next to his country, a man's allegiance and pride 
should be to his state. My ancestor got his farm 
from the Indians before Governor Dongan, and 
those who came after have largely remained by the 
old fireside. The great men who have adorned our 
history from the time of Hamilton and Jay are the 
inspirations of succeeding generations of New York 
youth. Thurlow Weed, who was for thirty years the 
dominant political factor in the political life of our 
state, was my preceptor in practical politics, while 
William H. Seward, whom I knew intimately and 
loved ardently, was my teacher in political prin- 
ciples. 

Our glorious old commonwealth is foremost of all 
our sister states in all that constitutes a great em- 
pire. I have always felt, both in the Senate and 

[89] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

out, that in working for the state, which, with its 
unequalled harbor, its lake ports, its great canal, its 
mighty metropolis, which is the financial and com- 
mercial center of the United States, I was doing the 
best service possible for my country. 



[90] 



Speech at the Dinner given to the Ex-Presidents 
of the Union League Club of New York, Sat- 
urday, April 8, 1911. 

Mr. President and Fellow Members of the Union 
League Club: 

This meeting which you give with such a large 
representation of our membership to the ex-Presi- 
dents of this organization is one of the most interest- 
ing events in the history of any club. The seven 
Presidents who have filled that high office for thirty- 
eight years are here not only in life but with vigor. 
The position of chief executive is inspiring, keeps 
the arteries from hardening and prolongs life. 

Our senior, Mr. Choate, happy in his eightieth 
year, has talked to us to-night with all that bril- 
liancy, versatility, wit, humor and eloquence which 
has endeared him for more than half a century to 
his countrymen. I join with you in congratulating 
him upon having preserved the poster which an- 
nounced that the Republicans of the Twentieth 
Ward of New York City would hold a ratification 
meeting for the election to the Presidency of Fre- 
mont and Dayton in October, 1856, and that the 
speakers would be Joseph H. Choate, Esquire, and 
others. He had already reached that distinction so 
eagerly sought by all young orators of rising from 
among others to the first place on the program for 
the night. 

But our friend Choate is not the sole survivor of 
the speakers of the campaign of 1856, for, in Sep- 
tember of that year, I was the only speaker at a 

[91] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

Republican ratification at Simpson's Hall, in the 
Village of Peekskill. What is the Twentieth Ward 
compared with the Village of Peekskill? 

The quotation of Mr. Choate from "Alice in Won- 
derland" most felicitously indicates the source of 
the success in life of your ex-Presidents whom you 
welcome here this evening. The philosophy of that 
quotation is that victory or longevity is largely a 
question of skill as a jawsmith. I would like to 
know where in this country there are any citizens 
who have got larger dividends out of the exercise 
of that member of the human anatomy, the jaw, 
than these ex-Presidents: Joseph H. Choate, Horace 
Porter, Elihu Root and myself. 

For many years I have been deeply interested in 
the plan to care for the ex- Presidents of the United 
States. While there are living seven ex-Presidents 
of the Union League Club, there never has been 
more than two of the United States. The cares of 
that office are a bar to longevity, and the living ex- 
President speedily expires when a new one appears. 
We as a people do not like to have our ex-Presidents 
return and enter upon the ordinary vocations of 
life. Mr. Cleveland felt that so strongly that he 
left a large and remunerative practice and lived in 
the quiet of scholastic Princeton. There was a cer- 
tain vexation among the people when Grant entered 
into business and when Harrison returned to the 
practice of law. After much thought I had devised 
a scheme and contributed much literature to it for 
pensioning ex-Presidents. The idea had become 
popular and was generally supported in the press. 
The thought was that the country should have those 
experiences which can be secured nowhere except in 
the Presidency by giving to the ex-President a life 
seat in either House of Congress with a salary suf- 

[92] 



UNION LEAGUE CLUB SPEECH 

ficient to maintain the dignity of the position. But 
the scheme was killed by President Roosevelt. In 
a notable speech just before he retired from office, 
he called attention to this effort and said in effect 
that he desired to inform his countrymen that he did 
not wish them to make any provision for him by 
way of pension or otherwise, and then remarked 
with rare emphasis, "This ex-President can take 
care of himself." He certainly has demonstrated 
not only to the United States but to the whole 
world his vigorous and successful independence. 

I do not know that the question of what to do 
with the ex-Presidents of the Union League Club 
has ever been agitated, but you have happily 
solved that problem. Dine them frequently, dine 
them well and make them glad at the dinner by 
your enthusiastic and cheering approval of their 
administrations. 

I was for seven years President of this club, three 
years longer than anyone who ever held the place. 
It gave me a knowledge of human nature, as ex- 
hibited without reserve in this family relationship, 
which has been of incalculable value and amusing 
interest. It is an old saying that eighteen hundred 
members of a club pay annual dues in order that 
they may occasionally have a place to dine or to 
sleep, and one hundred of their number enjoy pa- 
latial accommodations and comforts at the lowest 
possible cost. It is among these perennials that we 
study human nature — the few who grab all the 
morning and evening papers so that the occasional 
dropper-in can find none, the few who take all the 
seats in the library and all the tables for correspon- 
dence and retain possession, the few who regard it 
as an outrage if new members staying in town over 
night deprive them for an hour or so of their daily 

[93] 



ON" THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

accommodations in the dining-room, which they 
think belong to them by pre-emption alone. One 
of the plaints of the House Committee in my time 
was how six members would combine their order and 
beat the club by having an order for two secure 
a course dinner. 

But, while this is one of the best social clubs in 
the world, its distinction is political. It had its ori- 
gin in 1863 in the darkest hour of the Civil War. 
It was organized to help the government with both 
money and men. Its members subscribed for gov- 
ernment securities when the credit of the nation was 
at its lowest ebb, and they recruited regiments at 
the expense of the club. A notable part of the his- 
tory of New York in the Civil War is the regiment 
of colored men raised and equipped by the Union 
League Club. The prejudice in this city against the 
negro was as great almost as in South Carolina. 
It was doubtful if that regiment would be permitted 
to march down Fifth Avenue and Broadway to the 
trains and steamers which were to carry it to the 
front. The whole country doubted whether, with 
the strong pro-slavery sentiment of that period in 
this city, this regiment would be permitted to leave 
without being attacked and possibly dispersed. But 
the members of this club, who had raised that regi- 
ment, many of them well advanced in years and 
known and honored for a generation in this com- 
munity, solved the question by marching at the 
head of the colored regiment as it moved down 
Broadway. Unarmed, as they were, the moral cour- 
age of their act awed the crowd and instead of abuse 
and assault they were met with cheers. 

This incident recalls to my mind at this moment 
the march of the Seventh Regiment to the front. 
The government called for the National Guard, and 

[94] 



UNION LEAGUE CLUB SPEECH 

the Seventh Regiment of New York, at that time 
the best drilled and equipped in the country, imme- 
diately responded. Everyone who witnessed their 
departure has carried through life upon the tablets 
of memory the most extraordinary picture of the 
Civil War. When the novelty had worn away and 
people had become accustomed to the war hundreds 
of regiments from New England and the rural part 
of New York marched down Broadway without ex- 
citing much interest or attention. But when the 
Seventh marched the people did not know what war 
meant. We had had none since the Mexican War 
of 1848, in which few participated and which none 
remembered. The attack on Sumter had aroused 
horror and indignation through the North. In New 
York, with a much smaller population than now, the 
Seventh Regiment was peculiarly representative of 
its business and professional life. The whole country 
seemed to have come to New York to witness its de- 
parture. On every sidewalk and up to the roofs 
of the stores and houses and banked in the side 
streets were men and women waiting to give to the 
boys their greeting and farewell. The regiment 
never looked so well. Its ranks were full; none had 
of thousands who felt that they were parting per- 
ceded and followed them came from the full hearts 
of thousands who felt that they were parting per- 
haps forever with friends who were risking their 
lives for their benefit. While there was everything 
to inspire glory in the wild enthusiasm of these mul- 
titudes, there was a background of the tenderest 
pathos. In carriages and upon temporary platforms, 
where the cross-streets met the Avenue, stood the 
mothers, sisters, wives and sweethearts of the sol- 
diers. There was doubt if the regiment would reach 
Washington without being destroyed and greater 

[95] 



ON" THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

doubt if its members would ever return alive. From 
carriage window or from platform would be the flut- 
tering of the handkerchiefs as the loved one came 
abreast. There was no sign from the ranks. It was 
"eyes front" and perfect marching. But as com- 
pany after company went by, these women who had 
fluttered these handkerchiefs of farewell dropped in 
heaps where they stood as if the Angel of Death had 
already done his dreadful work. I have seen most 
of the great processions of the world, those of the 
pomp and splendor of inauguration of Presidents 
and coronation of Kings and Queens, those of mourn- 
ing over mighty dead, those of celebration over his- 
toric events and those of commemoration of the vic- 
tories of war or the triumphs of peace, but never in 
my life have I witnessed or felt anything so human, 
so closely in touch with everybody, so pathetic, and 
yet so inspiring, as the march of the Seventh Regi- 
ment down Broadway for the front in 1861. 

Well, gentlemen, we are not here for reminiscence 
alone. The ambition of this club is always to do 
what it can for the present and provide as far as 
possible for the future. I regret that in a way its 
political activities have abated in deference to its 
social side. There was a long period when the utter- 
ances of this club against fiat money, against debas- 
ing the currency by free silver, in favor of the gold 
standard, and for right industrial principles, were 
potent in the platforms of political conventions, in 
the speeches of candidates and in the legislation of 
Congresses and Legislatures. Presidents and Gover- 
nors and candidates for legislative offices ardently 
desired the approval of this club. Its power was in 
the fact that it did not name candidates but it was 
understood that an unworthy candidate would not 
receive its support and might receive its condemna- 

[96] 



UNION" LEAGUE CLUB SPEECH 

tion. The presidency of this club placed the recipi- 
ent upon the high road to political recognition. 

Of our Presidents, Choate, as Ambassador to 
Great Britain, left a memory which will last through 
generations, both on the diplomatic and social side. 
Horace Porter was one of the best Ambassadors we 
have ever had in France. John Jay performed splen- 
did service for his country as its representative at 
the courts of Berlin and Vienna. Cornelius N. Bliss, 
while Secretary of the Interior, astonished the land- 
grabber and the robber of Indian lands and appro- 
priations by treating them as thieves, and carrying 
into that office the principles of an honorable busi- 
ness life which had made him one of the most dis- 
tinguished merchants in New York. Elihu Root, as 
Secretary of War, originated and carried into effect 
the reforms which have made our Army an efficient 
machine, and, as Secretary of State, he placed our 
consular service upon a business basis, with merit as 
the qualification for places, while, in a larger way, by 
his wonderful visits to the capitals of the South 
American Republics, he did more for Pan-American 
peace and the preservation of the Monroe Doctrine 
than had been accomplished by any statesman in 
half a century. 

Gentlemen, the work of this club will never be 
finished. New problems are constantly arising al- 
most as important to our future, as a people and a 
nation, as those of the preservation of the Union. 
The perpetuity of the Republic is assured, the sta- 
bility of its currency is established, but, in the fu- 
ture as in the past, beneficent principles can be aided 
by the intelligence, courage and patriotism of our 
club. 



[97] 



Speech at a Masonic Celebration at the Man- 
hattan Opera House, New York, April 13, 
1911. 

Brethren: 

We all have been interested and instructed by 
the eloquence of Brother Wolfe, of Washington. I 
think I ought to reveal a secret, not a Masonic one, 
but a State secret. One of the best officers in our 
consular service was Brother Wolfe while Consul 
General at Cairo. It was at the time of the famous 
revolt of the Arabs against British rule, which for 
a time was very threatening. An English official 
came to the Consul General and said, "I think the 
rebels will capture Cairo, and I advise you to leave. 
If they succeed, their first act will be to kill all the 
English and Christians." "Well," said Consul 
Wolfe, carelessly flicking the ashes from his cigar, 
"that does not affect me, for I am neither; I am 
an American and a Jew." 

The subject assigned to me, "The Mystic Tie," 
covers the whole field of Freemasonry, but it has 
a larger significance in the relation of peoples to 
each other, of capital and labor, of employer and 
employee and in the life of governments. It is 
a far cry back to the building of Solomon's temple 
and to the civilizations which had their rise and fall 
in the thousand years that intervened before the 
birth of Christ. We, as Masons, believe that the 
first successful effort to practically bring about the 
brotherhood of man occurred during the building of 
that wonderful temple. Solomon had gathered not 
only material but artisans from all the known 

[98] 



"the mystic tie" masonic speech 

world. These races and nationalities were natural 
enemies. The only international law known was 
force and might. But Hiram, the Master Builder, 
was more than an architect or a mechanic. He was 
a statesman and a philanthropist. He brought to- 
gether these hostile elements into a society whose 
only creed was the Fatherhood of God and the 
Brotherhood of Man. For three thousand years 
that sentiment has slowly worked its way down the 
centuries. It has been often checked. For long 
periods it had no life, so far as the relations of 
nations and alien peoples to each other are con- 
cerned, but the flame has been kept ever burning 
upon the altars of Masonic Lodges. 

We are to-day suddenly and in a large way 
brought face to face with the problem of universal 
peace. The message of the President of the United 
States meets with cordial and eager response from 
the King, government and people of Great Britain. 
In every church in England meetings are held to 
promote peace and good-will among men. Carnegie 
contributes a fund which yields five hundred 
thousand dollars a year to give practical impulse 
to the movement. The advocates of great armies 
and navies, who believe them to be insurance poli- 
cies for the peace of the countries which keep 
enlarging them, are met for the first time with an 
opposition which is something more than theory 
and sentimentalism. The Hague Tribunal has 
demonstrated the efficiency and effectiveness of 
arbitration. It has peacefully settled international 
questions which under the rule of the ages could 
have been decided only by the arbitrament of the 
sword. Now President Taft suggests to the civil- 
ized nations of the world, groaning under the burden 
of maintaining their armies and navies and madly 

[99] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

rushing toward national bankruptcy in the effort 
to equal or outdo each other by increasing the 
machinery of war, that arbitration may well be- 
come universal, and armies in the future instead 
of increasing can steadily diminish. As fast as 
this suggestion is accepted, so rapidly is extended 
among the peoples the beneficent influence of "The 
Mystic Tie." 

In July I will celebrate the fiftieth year of my 
entrance into the Masonic fraternity. I think vigor, 
health and longevity have come to me because of 
its associations. They have given to me a half 
century of unalloyed pleasure, of warm friendships 
and of growth in the belief of the beneficent influ- 
ences of our Order. What a wonderful half century 
from 1861, when I became a Mason, until now in 
1911! In all that makes life worth the living, in 
all that adds to material prosperity, individual and 
national, in all that adds to the comforts of life 
and the alleviation of diseases, this half century 
has no parallel. It has given to the world a larger 
liberty in government for the people and by the 
people than any other half century of recorded 
time. Within this half century the petty States 
of Germany have become united in one empire and 
the German people, in their marvelous industrial 
development, in the expansion of their trade and 
their commerce abroad, in liberties which they 
never knew before, have come to a large share in 
the blessings of the progress and evolution of this 
half cycle; so has united Italy; so has Republican 
France; so has Great Britain, with a larger and 
more responsive democracy than almost any nation. 
We have witnessed the creative processes of liberty 
penetrating the realm of Russian autocracy, and 
of Persian and Turkish absolutism, with something 

[100] 



"the mystic tie" masonic speech 

more than the semblance of representative govern- 
ment. The cables under the ocean bringing the 
round earth in intimate communication as the sun 
rises in its course every day, the leviathans of the 
deep constantly enlarging the sum of exchanges of 
products which promote peace, comfort and pros- 
perity, the telephone, the necessary hand-maiden 
of our daily life, are all the discoveries of our half 
century. The air about us has been forced to yield 
the electric current which is in time to conserve 
our coal deposits and our forests and run our rail- 
roads and our industries. It has been forced to sur- 
render upon commercial lines life-giving nitrogen 
to add to the productiveness of the soil and of its 
fruits. Education, at the expense of the State, is 
brought to the door of every child and equal oppor- 
tunity to the home of every citizen. 

One of the most affecting pictures in the story of 
Masonry occurred at the time of the disbandment 
of the American Army at the close of the Revolu- 
tionary War. Washington and his officers were 
Masons. They met as a lodge in his tent upon the 
eve of departure for their various homes, never to 
gather again. We can easily imagine in the ex- 
change of fraternal greetings their expression to one 
another of a new extension of "The Mystic Tie." 
These thirteen colonies, with their adverse inter- 
ests and many antagonisms, have been brought into 
a unified republic. We transmit to our children a 
united nation founded upon the eternal principles 
of liberty, to be maintained by them forever. We 
have fought and won for our people a principle 
never before recognized in government and em- 
bodied in the immortal declaration which has been 
our inspiration in camp and upon battlefield, "All 
men are created equal, with certain inalienable 

[101] 



ON" THE THKESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit 
of happiness." 'The Mystic Tie" framed that 
immortal document, the Constitution of the United 
States, and the machinery of the new government 
commenced its beneficent work. The Republic of 
the United States grew in everything which consti- 
tutes a great, glorious and free empire for seventy- 
eight years. Fifty years ago yesterday, Fort 
Sumter was fired upon. In all the cabinets of 
Europe it was the universal belief, "This shot 
breaks 'The Mystic Tie,' and the Republic of the 
United States goes down in blood as many another 
has in the history of the world." The slave-holding 
oligarchy firmly believed, "This shot breaks 'The 
Mystic Tie' that binds our States to the Federal 
Government." No one who witnessed it, can ever 
forget the shock, the horror, the fear and the rage 
of that day. In the old village of Peekskill I, with 
others who had attended church, were in the happy 
crowds going to our homes. Newsboys suddenly 
flashed along the street with the morning papers 
from New York shouting, "Sumter has been fired 
upon." Men, women and children stopped as if 
paralyzed and with blanched faces read the news. 
But there was one support for "The Mystic Tie" 
which the conspirators had not reckoned upon. It 
was the sentiment for "Liberty and Union, one and 
inseparable, now and forever," spoken with lofty 
inspiration by Webster and embodied in every 
school book and spoken for a generation in every 
declamation contest and upon every school plat- 
form in the land. "Liberty and Union, one and in- 
separable, now and forever," rang from the farms 
and through the workshops and from the pulpits 
and penetrated the offices of the lawyers and 
doctors and the counting rooms of the merchants 

[102] 



"the mystic tie" masonic speech 

and the shops of the manufacturers. In response 
to that cry millions of men left their homes and 
marched to die if need be for the perpetuity through 
all eternity of "Liberty and Union, one and insep- 
arable, now and forever." Slavery died, Lincoln 
reunited the Union, the seceded States came into 
the equal share with their victorious brethren of all 
the inestimable privilege of our government. The 
reunited country has moved forward by leaps and 
bounds to a position among the powers of the world, 
to an expansion of its liberties, to a development 
of its territories, to a union and prosperity of its 
peoples, never before accomplished anywhere or 
among any peoples in recorded time. So, my 
brethren, both within the lodge for three thousand 
years and in our country during its history, we live 
and move and have our being under "The Mystic 
Tie." 



[103] 



Speech at the Luncheon of the New York State 
Society of the Cincinnati and Their Guests 
from Other State Societies, Metropolitan Club, 
New York, May 10, 1911. 

Comrades: 

One of the most interesting of the commemora- 
tions of our Order of the Society of the Cincinnati 
is the celebration of its organization. On his birth- 
day we have a formal, and more or less imposing, 
ceremonial for the founder of the Society, George 
Washington, but this occasion is always informal 
and the addresses particularly so. 

I was reconstructing in my own mind on my way 
to this luncheon the scenery and conditions of the 
period when the Society was born, May 10th, 1783. 
The Continental Army and some of their French 
allies were encamped at Newburgh-on-the-Hudson. 
The war was over, and they were waiting for New 
York to be evacuated by the British troops in order 
that the victorious host of the Republic might make 
a formal entry, be disbanded, and return to their 
homes after seven years of glorious war. There is 
no more picturesque or beautiful spot in the world 
than the Highlands of the Hudson, and especially 
at this time of the year. Peace having arrived, 
these veterans of the patriot army were enjoying a 
rest after their long and arduous campaign and the 
terrible sufferings from want and privation which 
they had endured. Just below them was West 
Point suggesting a story still fresh in the minds of 
all how their struggle might have been a disastrous 

[ 104] 



CINCINNATI SOCIETY SPEECH 

failure if Benedict Arnold's conspiracy at that place 
had been successful. The communion of the officers 
must have been full of reminiscences of gallant 
comrades who had died, or fields fought over again, 
of the chivalric French without whose assistance 
they might never have won. In the midst of such 
surroundings an inspiration came to the Comman- 
der-in-Chief, the one man upon whom devolved the 
greatest responsibilities of his age and the greatest 
trials of his time, but who with infallible judgment 
never made a mistake, and always, with his happy 
combination of genius, tact and sense, did the right 
thing at the right time. Of course, then as now, 
organizations were created about the festive board. 
They knew no luncheons then. Dinner was always 
at or soon after noontime, and the evening meal 
was an informal affair called supper. That was the 
universal habit of the people of the United States 
during the first century of our existence. That 
dinner in Washington's tent was a suggestion, after 
all of the hardships of these veteran soldiers, of the 
future prosperity of the country which they had 
created. The Hudson River was teeming with fish, 
and especially rich in that best of them all, the shad. 
How different is our experience now with this most 
delicious of the members of the finny tribe. As she 
returns from the sea to her spawning beds she is 
met in the lower bay with the sludge from the fac- 
tories of the Standard Oil Company. Avoiding 
that as best she can, her next draught of what 
should be pure water is the sewage of the State of 
New Jersey, through the Passaic River, emptying 
into our harbor. As she seeks to escape in order 
to return to the place of her birth, she is assailed 
on every side with the outpourings of the refuse 
of this great city, of its sister on the other side and 

[105] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

of the innumerable factories along the banks. Con- 
trast this fish with the ones that were served on 
that memorable day in Washington's tent. It was 
my good fortune, as a Hudson River boy, to eat 
such shad in my early days. When the river was 
pure, when the water had the natural food of the 
fish, and when it was brought alive from the nets 
to the table, then the shad was a feast for the gods. 

But the Ramapo Hills and the hills about New- 
burgh were at that time full of game, and our fore- 
fathers were keen and successful sportsmen. There 
were no game laws, for none were needed, and game 
was not, as it is, unhappily, in our day, in danger 
of extermination by the pot hunter, the ignorant 
legislator passing foolish laws and officers enforcing 
them in a way to bring them into contempt and 
ridicule. 

The cellars of the old colonial families were still 
full of the choicest vintages of the Old World, and 
they were drawn upon freely and sent by General 
Schuyler and his associates to the Commander-in- 
Chief. 

In these surroundings the Chief said to his com- 
patriots, "Let us form a society which will stand 
forever for the principles and the preservation of 
our new Republic." Then was drafted, with that 
marvelous compactness and lucidity which charac- 
terized all formal papers of Alexander Hamilton, the 
constitution which has just been read to us, and 
to that constitution, commencing with the signature 
of George Washington, there followed the officers 
of the Continental Army and the officers of their 
French allies. According to the habit of that period 
the membership was made hereditary. 

I once heard one of the ablest of British states- 
men and most eloquent of speakers, Lord Rosebery, 

[106] 



CINCINNATI SOCIETY SPEECH 

say in his charming way that if the American colo- 
nies had not rebelled, and remained loyal to the 
Crown and Parliament of Great Britain, their 
growth and prosperity would probably have been 
the same if not greater. The overwhelming influ- 
ence of these most populous, wealthy and powerful 
of the semi-independent colonies of the empire 
would have drawn Buckingham Palace to New 
York, Windsor Castle to the Hudson and the Par- 
liament Houses to Central Park. Of course, all this 
was in a spirit of friendly humor and banter; never- 
theless, it suggests a pregnant thought. The move- 
ment of populations to new territories in order that 
they may better their conditions, either in the en- 
joyment of civil and religious liberty or materially, 
is governed more by sentiment than by interest. 
Australia has an area a little greater than the 
United States. It has a soil and climate eminently 
fitted to sustain a large population. For sixty 
years it has had the same opportunities in govern- 
ment, in all essential liberties and in attractiveness 
as our own country, and yet, while our population 
has grown to one hundred million, Australasia has 
only about eight million, less than the single State 
of New York. Canada on our northern border has 
an area in square miles about the same as our own. 
Two-thirds of it at least is capable of profitable 
development in agriculture, forestry and mining. 
Its existence as a colony, with every independent 
power of self-government, except a sentimental 
attachment as a member of the British Empire and 
the English Crown, is coincident in years with that 
of the Republic of the United States, and yet the 
population of Canada, with all the power of Great 
Britain to assist, is less again than that of the single 
State of New York. 

[107] 



OX THE THEESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

It is most interesting that the great migrations 
of the last century, of which such a large number 
came from the British Isles, have steadily flowed 
into the United States and could not be diverted 
to either Australasia or to Canada, If the govern- 
ments of these colonies had been narrow or restricted 
or illiberal, the question could be easily answered, 
but every liberty, freedom of conscience, civil rights, 
liberty of locomotion, free press, universal suffrage, 
are common to all these governments. In the 
United States, however, the citizen is not a subject, 
He is a sovereign. Within his sphere he is a king, 
and, united to make a majority, he becomes the 
sovereign power in the land. It is this sentiment 
of becoming an independent citizen of a country 
with an independent government which has created 
out of our wilderness great commonwealths, which 
has spread populations over our plains and moun- 
tains and valleys while these enormous colonies of 
the mother country remain so largely still in 
primeval conditions. 

It was about the time of the organization of the 
Society of the Cincinnati when the army, in arrears 
of pay for three years, angered at the Continental 
Congress by its neglect, presented a petition to 
Washington stating in effect that a new representa- 
tive government never would be strong enough to 
live, and their safety and that of their children 
was in a powerful executive like a king; if he only 
would take this place, they had the power to put 
and keep him there and the country would be safe. 
Washington rejected their proposal with more tem- 
per than he had ever displayed, and, at the same 
time, read them a lesson, which they never forgot, 
upon the value of the liberty for which they had 
fought. It may have been that this contemplated 

[108] 



CINCINNATI SOCIETY SPEECH 



revolt suggested to Washington the formation of 
this society as one of the bonds of union. The 
keynote, the central thought of its Constitution as 
approved by him, was loyalty to the Union of the 
States and the preservation of the National Gov- 
ernment. 

A few months afterwards Washington bid fare- 
well to his officers at Fraunce's Tavern in New York 
and departed for his home at Mount Vernon. The 
officers, returning to the thirteen States to which 
they belonged, carried with them the charters of 
the State societies as they exist to-day. As we read 
of the dangers of the young Republic, of the 
Articles of Confederation which proved a rope of 
sand, of the difficulties in the Constitutional Con- 
vention to form a national instrument which would 
be acceptable to all, of the opposition to its rati- 
fication which was successful for more than a year, 
and of the perils of the new government until 
Washington had placed it upon a firm foundation 
during his two terms as President, we can appre- 
ciate the value of this Society in cementing the 
Union of the States. Wireless telegraphy has come 
to us within the last decade, but wireless telepathy 
is as old as human intelligence. The officers of the 
Continental Army were the leading spirits in their 
several communities. Every one of them was actu- 
ated with the spirit of Washington. Mails were 
irregular and communication difficult in that early 
period, but each knew, as opposition to the Union, 
or to the adoption of the Constitution, or to the 
administration of Washington, showed itself in his 
neighborhood what Washington expected him to do, 
and, though his sword was sheathed, as a citizen he 
performed that duty as loyally as he would have 

[109] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

done under the eye of his great commander upon 
the field of battle. 

Washington seems to us to have been the most 
industrious man who ever lived. His estates, his 
business, his hospitality were enough work for any- 
one, but he kept up a correspondence, all written by 
his own hand, with his officers, with distinguished 
civilians and with eminent men in foreign lands. 
The Constitutional Convention could never have 
agreed except for his commanding influence and the 
support which he received from the constituencies 
of its members among the officers of the Army of 
the Revolution all over the country. It could never 
have been ratified by the States except that in 
every State Convention were these veterans car- 
rying out the wishes, voicing the sentiments and 
loyally following the lead of their great chief. It is 
a delightful and at the same time a most respon- 
sible heritage that has come to us, the descendants 
of the officers who formed the Society of the Cincin- 
nati. Each period has its crises and its perils the 
same as during the administration of Washington. 
They differ in degree and intensity, and yet each 
of them require for their proper solution the best 
intelligence, the highest patriotism and the most 
devoted loyalty of the citizen. To the members 
of the Society of the Cincinnati this duty is one 
specially imposed and gladly accepted. As we cele- 
brate the organization of the Society, the birthday 
of Washington, its founder, and on the Fourth of 
July the Declaration of Independence, we study 
again the story of the founder, we read anew the 
life of the Republic and we renew afresh the obli- 
gations transmitted to us by our ancestors, and 
which we assumed when we signed our constitution. 

[110] 



Speech at the Dinner given by the Pilgrims' 
Society of New York, to Hon. John Hays 
Hammond, Special Ambassador to the Coro- 
nation of King George V, May 24, 1911. 

Mr. President: 

In honoring the Special Ambassador to Great 
Britain for the coronation of King George, we 
Pilgrims are performing one of our constitutional 
functions. The Pilgrims' Society of New York and 
the Pilgrims' Society of London have been among 
the most efficient agencies in bringing about an era 
of perpetual peace, good-will and friendship be- 
tween the old country and the new. We meet to 
welcome a distinguished visitor from the other side, 
and then, when he goes away, we meet again to 
speed the parting guest. On the other hand, we 
give our benediction, our blessing and our good 
luck to our Ambassador going to his post, and then, 
when he retires or is retired, we greet him with a 
cordial welcome and consolation dinner, so that 
among the honors, which come as a matter of course 
to an American Ambassador going to England, are 
at least four good dinners and friendly functions — 
from the Pilgrims in New York when he goes, and 
London when he arrives, and London when he 
leaves, and in New York when he returns. 

While Special Ambassadors have been known 
among royalties for centuries in the interchange of 
greetings on coronations and funeral ceremonies, I 
think the first from the United States was created 
by President McKinley, unless I might refer to an 

[111] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

earlier occasion which was never reported. Mr. 
Emory Storrs, a distinguished but eccentric lawyer 
of Chicago, wanted to be Attorney- General in the 
Cabinet of President Arthur. He was greatly dis- 
appointed because he failed. His clients raised a 
fund to send him to Europe, and he went to Arthur 
and said that he would like to go with some distinc- 
tion; so Arthur, who appreciated Storrs perfectly, 
had a commission made out on parchment, signed 
by himself and attested by the Secretary of State, 
with the great seal attached empowering Mr. Storrs 
as a Special Commissioner to look into the trouble 
about the importation of cattle into Great Britain 
from the United States. Our minister at that time 
was James Russell Lowell. Lowell was furious, say- 
ing that he was attending to that matter much bet- 
ter than could this presumptuous Chicago lawyer. 
Storrs was a passenger on the same ship with me. 
He showed me his credentials every day, with sig- 
nature and stamp and the seal, and finally I said 
to him: "Storrs, what do you expect to accom- 
plish?" "Well, of course," he said, "I have no 
intention of bothering about cattle. Our legation 
is amply competent to look after that. What I am 
after is to compel old Lowell who, I understand, 
shows few, if any, courtesies to Americans, to give 
me a dinner and request me to select the guests." 
Lowell told me afterward that to keep the peace 
with the brute and prevent trouble at Washington 
he granted this request, expecting that Storrs would 
want him to invite the Queen and the whole royal 
family. He was delighted when the Chicago lawyer 
selected Tyndall, Huxley, Tennyson and world-wide 
celebrities in literature, science and art. I believe 
the cattle question while not burning very luridly, 
is still a spark, but happily, its extinguishment 

[112] 



TRIBUTE TO HON. JOHN HAYS HAMMOND 

will not be among the duties of our friend, Mr. 
Hammond. 

It so happened that Mr. Storrs was also a fellow- 
passenger on our return voyage. I said : "Tell me all 
about that dinner." "Well," said Mr. Storrs, "I 
stood one day in absorbed attention before that 
marvelous Madonna by Raphael, in the Dresden 
Gallery. It seemed to me that a divine inspiration 
had guided the brush of the artist. Suddenly I 
was conscious that the gaze of the crowded room, 
all Americans, was concentrated on me instead of 
the picture. I turned on the people and said: 
"Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, you are in the 
presence of one of the world's greatest wonders, 
which to see is an event in life, and yet you drop 
this masterpiece for me. I never have attracted 
attention by my personal appearance in our own 
country. What is the matter? Is it my clothes? 
They were made in Chicago." "No," said a fine- 
looking man who acted as spokesman for the party, 
"you are of more interest to us than all the old 
masters, because you made old Lowell give you a 
dinner." 

The Special Ambassador, during the ceremonies, 
is the whole show. The regular Ambassador is not 
in it. As a result, the regular Ambassador has never 
yet, however he may have acted outwardly, ac- 
cepted with cordiality the presence of this function- 
ary who precedes himself. Well, then, the question 
arises, and has always arisen, "What is the Special 
Ambassador to do?" Precisely the same as the 
special representatives from the other great powers. 
He is the President of the United States. Every- 
where, at all places, he is received as the President 
of the United States. In other words he is Taft, 
and I am sure, as we all are, that our genial, com- 

[113] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OP EIGHTY 

pardonable and attractive President has happily 
chosen in making our friend Hammond on this dis- 
tinguished occasion his personal representative. 

As a traveler for many years, I have had im- 
pressed upon me the difference between an Ambas- 
sador and a Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy 
Extraordinary. By a rule, four hundred years old, 
the Ambassador can stand covered, if he chooses to 
do that, in the presence of the King. In any event, 
he stands as an equal among the royalties, while a 
Minister Plenipotentiary in England goes in after 
a Duke and ahead of an Earl. This was our condi- 
tion until the period of John Hay. The British 
Government, by all sorts of ruses and subterfuges, 
did their best to give some distinction to our Minis- 
ter, but they never could induce the Ambassadors 
of other countries to let him in among the elect 
or to allow him to march in with them. 

One time, when I was in Paris, the Minister of 
Foreign Affairs, whom I had met in America at the 
time I delivered the oration at the unveiling of 
Bartholdi's Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, 
sent a special messenger asking me to have the 
American Minister present me to him officially at 
the Foreign Office. The Minister and I went down 
and had to wait an hour after we arrived before 
we were admitted, though the hour had been 
named. On making an inquiry, we found that an 
Ambassador had arrived a few minutes after we 
did, but, in deference to his rank, he had to be ad- 
mitted first. I inquired, "From what country is 
this Ambassador?" The answer was, "Hayti." 
With that experience I became a missionary for the 
creation of embassies, and I think the narration of 
this incident had something to do with the final 
success of the movement. 

[114] 



TKIBUTE TO HON. JOHN HAYS HAMMOND 

While a Senator, I had a conference with the then 
President. The object of the consultation was to 
secure the retention of certain gentlemen in the 
diplomatic service and the appointment of others. 
The President said: "I am going to change nearly 
the whole diplomatic corps. While we never can 
do without this service so long as other countries 
have it, I regard the position as an honorary one to 
decorate citizens who deserve distinction. England 
can give titles, knighthoods and decorations, France 
has the Legion of Honor, and other countries have 
various orders which become hereditary privileges, 
while we have nothing of the kind. Now critical 
matters are always conducted by cable directly 
through the Foreign Office and the Secretary of 
State and, therefore, I think that when a man has 
been ambassador for four years, or certainly six, he 
ought to yield and allow the decoration to be 
pinned onto the coat of some other worthy and de- 
serving citizen. The honor lasts for his life. It 
gives him the precedence at all dinners in his own 
country, and is part of the record of his family to 
endless generations, so I propose to remove many 
of my most intimate friends, believing that I do 
them no harm, while I confer honor and distinction 
upon others whom I think eminently worthy." I 
do not entirely agree with the President in this 
view, because I have known many instances, in 
fact, they occur frequently, where the acquain- 
tances formed by the ambassador with the ruling 
powers of the country to which he is accredited, 
and where the fact that he is on the spot often re- 
moves frictions which might grow into serious 
matters^ and often removes prejudices and misun- 
derstandings before they have reached the dignity 
of a controversy, which would call into play the 

[115] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

activities of the ruler and the foreign office, on the 
one hand, and the President and Secretary of State 
and possibly Congress, on the other. 

Our friend will greet the King upon his corona- 
tion with a special message from the President at 
a more auspicious moment than has ever occurred 
before in the relations of our two countries, when a 
King was crowned or a President was inaugurated, 
because he arrives at the happy time when the per- 
petual settlement of disputes by arbitration, sug- 
gested by President Taft and cordially seconded by 
King George, is receiving unprecedented welcome 
and approval from the Parliament and the people 
of Great Britain, and from the people of the United 
States, and only awaits the action of Congress to 
perfect its beneficent results. 

It is with more than an expression of personal 
regard and good wishes that we bid Ambassador 
Hammond farewell. The occasion rises far above 
an individual compliment. It is because we, as 
Americans, recognize in his mission, and in the re- 
ception which it will receive in Great Britain, an 
added impetus to the movement so happily inau- 
gurated by President Taft for an eternity of peace, 
friendship and the reciprocal benefits of amicable 
relations between Great Britain and the United 
States. 



[116] 



(Stenographically Reported) 

Speech at the Pilgrims' Coronation Dinner, Savoy 
Hotel, London, June 28, 1911, in Honor of 
the Special Ambassador to the Coronation, 
Hon. John Hays Hammond. 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: 

I am very glad to be here because for one reason 
I had the pleasure of making a speech at the Pil- 
grims' dinner in New York for Mr. Hammond as 
Special Ambassador to the Coronation. I assured 
him at the time that he would be dined by the 
Pilgrims' Society in London when he arrived, and 
again by the Pilgrims' Society in America when 
he returned, and I advised him that in a mission 
of peace among men, and especially between 
English speaking peoples, the thing for him to do 
to promote good-will and friendship between the 
people of the United States and the people of 
Great Britain was to accept every invitation which 
was offered him on this side and give as many in 
return as he could. Now I am happily relieved 
from the limitations which fall upon a Special Am- 
bassador and upon all Ambassadors. I am three 
months out of office. There is no sword of Dam- 
ocles hanging over my head, but as an independent 
citizen I can acquire more influence at home by 
saying imprudent things as a private citizen than I 
can by talking solid sense. (Laughter.) And 
there is another special reason which gratifies me 
in being here to-night, and that is that we are under 
the chairmanship of Mr. Balfour — (applause) — 
because all Americans remember that at a critical 

[117] 



ON" THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

period in our history, when we were in danger of 
having a little difficulty of ours enormously exag- 
gerated by a Continental combine against us, that 
combine was defeated largely by the personal influ- 
ence of Mr. Balfour. (Cheers.) Now I wonder — 
because on occasions like this marvelous Corona- 
tion, and I have been at all the demonstrations of 
Empire which have occurred in Great Britain, there 
are certain things which occur to a man who has 
been many years, and I have been so many that I 
will not acknowledge them, in touch with public 
affairs — I wonder whether John Adams, men- 
tioned by Mr. Birrell, Washington, Hamilton and 
Jefferson, the four great creators of our Republic, 
had been re-incarnated and, in five-guinea seats — 
(laughter) — had witnessed that marvelous proces- 
sion, with Canada, the elder daughter of the Em- 
pire, at the head, they would have regretted that 
they were not at the head, as they would have been 
if we had not separated. My impression is that 
they would not. (Laughter.) If I was an Ambas- 
sador and had been in jail, I would not have said 
that, but what they would have thought is that in 
the evolution of the two countries which has oc- 
curred since the separation, each carrying out its 
own ideas in its own way to its manifest destiny, 
they have worked upon each other in the develop- 
ment of liberty as they never could have done if 
they had been together. (Applause.) 

Now, Daniel Webster, who was the greatest of 
our orators, in a remarkable figure, as I remember 
it, said: "Whose morning drumbeat, following the 
sun, and keeping company with the hours, circles 
the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of 
the martial airs of England." His idea, eighty years 
ago, was that those martial strains meant power, 

[118] 



pilgrims' coronation dinner 

the power of the white race over subject peoples. 
But the music which went round the world on the 
day of the Coronation was entirely different, be- 
cause it was an anthem which reached a continuous 
circle of the same blood and same people, saying 
that the succession of independent states belting 
the globe were united in one Empire in a glory 
and strength greater than men of Webster's period 
ever dreamed of. (Applause.) Now we over in 
our country, I do not know how it is here, are con- 
siderably disturbed on the subject of germs. 
(Laughter.) We have, in a measure, exterminated 
the mosquito, and just before I left some scientific 
health people had organized in every village a 
society called "Swat the House-Fly." (Laughter.) 
During nearly eighty years the microbes have been 
fighting and having a jolly time in my blood, but, 
as far as I know, without any disturbance to my- 
self; and neither my digestion nor appetite nor 
health have ever been interfered with by germs or 
microbes. I dismiss, therefore, the health side; but 
it occurred to me as I was coming across the Chan- 
nel, and reading the marvelous accounts of the 
Coronation ceremonies, that there is something in 
the germ in the historical sense. 

Up in Litchfield, Connecticut, is an old Puritan 
church, and the pastor of that church, during the 
Revolutionary War, preached a sermon when some 
American troops were going through to join Gen- 
eral Washington at West Point, and he was so 
proud of it that he entered it on the Parish Regis- 
ter. I read it there ; it was a long sermon. General 
Howe was coming across the ocean with reinforce- 
ments for the British in New York, and the good 
parson said: "Oh, Lord, I pray Thee that on that 
fleet Thy lightnings will play and Thy thunders will 

[119] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

roar, and that the waters may rise and bury them 
in the deep, and that they may go to that reward 
of eternal fire where they will be properly received, 
for Thy glory and the safety of Thy Saints, among 
this Thy people." (Loud laughter.) Now that 
germ has grown, so that Brother Birrell wrote 7,000 
words describing the procession to a great New 
York newspaper, and so that in every considerable 
place in the United States the churches were open 
for religious services for the health and prosperity 
of the British people and the King just consecrated. 
(Applause.) Now these germs, the germ of Run- 
nymede, for instance, when those glorious old 
athletes who did not think learning amounted to 
anything except for the parson and the lawyer, and 
therefore with the hilts of their swords put their 
mark upon the seals of Magna Charta, they en- 
closed in that charter a germ which in the evolution 
of the centuries produced the principles which Jef- 
ferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, 
which Lincoln wrote in the proclamation emanci- 
pating the slaves, and which for you has created a 
democracy which, while retaining the forms and 
ceremonies of the past, has so united medievalism 
with modernism that you have a democratic gov- 
ernment more democratic in its immediate respon- 
siveness to the people than any which exists. 

Well, my friends, since I have been here I have 
heard that there is a fear, which mars somewhat 
the pleasure of our visit, that we are seeking 
Canada. Now I want to assure you that there are 
no signs of that. Uncle Sam does not mean any- 
thing of the kind, and is not serious in his inten- 
tions, though rather tumultuous in his ardor, and 
the beautiful Lady of the Snows up North under- 
stands him perfectly. This reciprocity treaty shows 

[120] 



pilgrims' coronation dinner 

that she is quite able to take care of herself, and of 
contributing something to the general welfare of 
the Empire to which she belongs. We have ac- 
quired within the last ten years Hawaii and Porto 
Rico and the Philippines, and we think we have 
not, but still we have, Cuba, (Loud Laughter.) 
So we are in a position on this question of annexa- 
tion and of not wanting any more territory of the 
opulently gifted lady in the sense of avoirdupois, 
who was a suburbanite, whom I saw getting on the 
train one day with her arms full of bundles, as 
suburbanite ladies always are, and as she put a foot 
on the step of the car one fell off, and when she 
picked it up two fell off. A neighbor said to her, 
"I am detained in the City to-night, may I 
add this parcel to yours for my wife?" She 
answered : "No, I have troubles enough of my own." 
(Laughter.) 

I have noticed also that there is no difference 
in the evolution of Parliamentary life between 
Great Britain and the United States. If I may be 
reminiscent for a moment, about twenty-five years 
ago Lord Rosebery invited me to go after dinner 
to a meeting in the interests of Empire — Colonials 
and the like. It was a small room and they were 
principally colonial bishops. There was no talk 
but plenty of champagne and cigars. In fact, it 
was a spiritual meeting. (Laughter.) Well, there 
was not a word of it in next morning's papers. 
Twenty-five years have passed, and in the hall of 
Rufus, the seat of the mother of Parliaments, this 
same Lord Rosebery recently presided at a great 
banquet to the colonial representatives of these 
empires in themselves, yet all affiliated in interest 
and patriotism with the central government, work- 
ing out their own destinies, united somewhat as our 

[121] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

States are, with our central government. That 
assembly listened to one of the happiest speeches 
from Lord Rosebery, one of the most gifted of your 
orators, voicing the sentiment of Empire for Great 
Britain. Mr. Gladstone once said to me that if 
he could select from among all the years of recorded 
time a half century, the half century he would select 
would be that in which he had lived, because it 
was a half century of emancipation. If he could 
have lived twenty-five years more and witnessed 
this progress of which he never dreamed, he would, 
I think, have felt that the half century which 
closed on the day when King George V. was 
anointed and crowned was infinitely grander than 
the half century of which he was so proud. 

I have been listening to speeches in the United 
States Senate for the last twelve years, and I read 
your speeches and I am still alive. I notice that the 
development of politics among statesmen and poli- 
ticians is the same with you as it is with us, until 
a question is decided. In one of the last debates in 
the Senate when I was there six months ago, a 
senator was evolving his ideas on a critical ques- 
tion in the country which was specially acute in his 
own State, and he was a candidate for re-election. 
(Laughter.) He was on the fence, not, as one of 
your statesmen happily has said, with his flag nailed 
to it. A witty colleague of mine said "That speech 
reminds me of an old farmer in my State who came 
to town carrying a family clock, and said to the 
maker, 'I do not know what is the matter with this 
clock. When it strikes twelve and the hand points 
to four, I know it is half past two, and nobody 
knows it but me.' " 

Well, my friend President Taft has done many 
happy things since he has been President of the 

[122] 



pilgrims' coronation dinner 

United States. He has succeeded in having more of 
his policies enacted into laws than almost any Presi- 
dent since Lincoln, his plea for International Arbi- 
tration marks a new era of peace among nations. He 
has been singularly happy in his appointments to 
office. His appointments to the Supreme Court of 
the United States have led to that wonderful de- 
cision in the Standard Oil and other cases which 
have clarified the air and made our old Constitution 
good for another 125 years, because now all great 
problems are to be judged by the light of reason. 
The foolish virgins were put out of business because 
they had no oil. Standard Oil is to be put out of 
business because they have too much. (Laughter.) 
One of the happiest appointments of President Taft 
was when he determined to wipe out that jail record 
of Hammond by making him Special Ambassador on 
this occasion. We, as Americans, believe he could 
have made no better selection. It was my privilege 
to know for many years the late King very well, and 
to appreciate, as only those could who knew him 
socially, that he was the best representative of an 
English gentleman or a gentleman of any race; 
that he was the most hospitable of hosts, the most 
charming of companions, the most genial of men; 
and that, so far as America and Americans were 
concerned, he was on all occasions bringing all the 
power of his great place as Prince of Wales and as 
King to the bettering of the relations between our 
two countries. No man or woman arrived here 
from America who was worthy of his recognition 
as an artist or who was striving for some distinc- 
tion, that he did not lend every aid to put that per- 
son upon a platform where that talent could be 
recognized. As a diplomatist, no one did so much 
to bring about peace between Great Britain and 

[123] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

other countries. Now, the hope of every American 
represented by our Special Ambassador, and our 
regular Ambassador, represented by the unanimous 
voice of the Press of the United States, is that in 
popularity with his own people and in success as a 
King, George V will be as great as his father and, 
if possible, greater. 



[124] 



Speech at the Banquet given by the American 
Chamber of Commerce of Paris, France, July 
4, 1911. 

Baron d'Estournelles de Constant, who had just 
returned from the United States on a mission of 
peace by arbitration, had closed a brilliant speech 
describing his visit and the result of his mission, 
when Mr. Depew was asked to reply. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: 

I dislike at this late hour to break the charm of 
the address which has just been delivered by my 
friend Baron d'Estournelles de Constant. No itin- 
erary of the United States will ev*er be perfect 
which does not include his description of our cities. 
No booming Western City, especially Denver and 
Seattle, will be worthy of the ambition which they 
have to outrival New York, unless they scatter a 
leaflet reading "See what the baron says about us." 

The following little story about Boston and Chi- 
cago, I think, fully illustrates the merits and virtues 
of both. A Boston man found himself in Heaven, 
and when Saint Peter called his attention to all the 
wonderful things there, he said, "Yes, very fine, but 
it isn't Boston." When a Chicago man was being 
led about the other world he said to his attendant, 
"I did not know that Chicago was so much like 
Heaven," and the attendant replied, "Weil, you are 
not in Heaven." 

I am not surprised that after the visit which our 
friend, the baron, paid to Salt Lake City he no longer 
keeps quiet on the subject of the girls. Really, the 

[125] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

gentleman from Boston Chamber of Commerce 
voiced the sentiment of the evening when he said 
that here in Paris we Americans feel at home. 
There has been no missionary going to the United 
States in the interest of peace and amity, no 
missionary recalling to Americans what the French 
did for us, no missionary since Lafayette, who 
has received such a welcome, because of the people 
whom he represented and the message he brought, 
as did the orator who has just taken his seat, our 
friend the Baron d'Estoumelles de Constant. There 
are two places in the world where we Americans 
can celebrate the Fourth of July with absolute 
unanimity. Every country celebrates its natal day 
or its one great event within its own boundaries, 
and among its own people, but it is possible for 
Americans to celebrate their natal day with en- 
thusiasm on French territory and within the 
boundaries of our own country. People speak of 
reciprocity as if it were a new sentiment, a new doc- 
trine recently discovered, but reciprocity is 125 
years old. It was reciprocity which in our darkest 
hour, when we were without funds, when our soldiers 
were barefooted, when we were nearly out of ammu- 
nition and guns, that brought to us the French 
Army within, and the French Navy without, and 
money and credit. 

Now I am not a believer in germs. You know it 
is a fixed American idea to have germs. In America 
everybody is afraid to drink water or eat food, be- 
cause of germs. I have lived until my seventy- 
eighth year, and I have eaten and drunk everything 
that has come my way, and there has been going 
on in my veins that battle which they say is con- 
tinually raging between germs of one hard name 
and their enemies with another. If one succeeds 

[126] 



CHAMBER OF COMMERCE SPEECH 

you are a "gonner," and if another is victorious you 
are safe, but here I am, so far as I can see without 
impaired digestion or vitality, and I only know that 
the results are entirely satisfactory. However, 
speaking about germs, there is a germ I do believe in' 
and that is the germ in the origin of nations and 
their development. The most noted germ that has 
ever come into this world since Christ, is the germ 
of liberty which appeared in the United States, and 
was voiced in the Declaration of Independence, but 
that germ compressed in this sentence by Jefferson 
that "All men are created equal with certain inalien- 
able rights among which are life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness" meant little at that time any- 
where. In the United States was a landed aristoc- 
racy, we had no universal suffrage, suffrage was de- 
pendent upon property, and France at that time was 
an absolute monarchy, with a few philosophers writ- 
ing about theoretical liberty. But that germ in the 
course of 135 years has, in our country, put us at 
the head of all nations, as the most populous, the 
most wealthy, the most liberty enjoying, the hap- 
piest people in the world. That germ came over 
here to France with Lafayette, Rochambeau and 
other French soldiers returning from America, and 
it produced the French Revolution, which destroyed 
absolutism in France, and through many revolutions 
it has at last in our day led to a republic which will 
be as perpetual as our own. 

The Baron very happily spoke of dreams and 
sentiment. I have always been a believer in dreams 
and sentiment. I believe that sentiment is the one 
thing which has moved the world more than any- 
thing else. Lord Rosebery, the most eloquent of 
British orators, made a speech, partly serious, partly 
badinage, m which he said it was a mistake for the 

[127] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

American Colonies to have separated from Great 
Britain, because had they remained, they would 
have drawn the King to New York, Windsor Castle 
somewhere in Central Park, and Buckingham Palace 
in City Hall Park. Here comes in the sentiment, 
and the dream. Canada has been a self-governing 
colony just as long as the United States has been an 
independent Republic, Australia for more than fifty 
years has been a self-governing colony. Canada 
has a territory as large as the United States, two 
thirds of which is quite as productive, yet she has 
two millions of inhabitants less than the State of 
New York. Australia has a territory as large and 
as productive as the United States, but has a popu- 
lation less than New York City, and four millions 
less than the State of New York; four millions in 
Australia, seven millions in Canada, and ninety mil- 
lions in the United States! What is the reason? 
Emigration from Europe has created all these coun- 
tries. People left Europe to find civil and religious 
liberty, but they have civil and religious liberty in 
Canada and Australia as well as in the United 
States. People left Europe to be able to govern 
themselves, but they govern themselves as well in 
Canada and Australia as they do in the United 
States, and they have every opportunity we enjoy 
but one, and that is a shadow. That shadow is the 
sovereignty of Great Britain. It is not exercised, 
except for their protection. Great Britain taxes her- 
self for their defence, but there is over them the 
shadow of a power, in whose administration they 
have no voice, while in our country, on the contrary, 
ninety millions feel independent and happy because 
with us there is no shadow before the sun of liberty. 
Its beams shine undimmed on every part of our 
land, and each citizen is a sovereign. 

[ 128] 



CHAMBER OF COMMERCE SPEECH 

We have grown a good deal since you of the Amer- 
ican Chamber of Commerce of Paris left to settle 
over here, and we have many ideas there that you 
would grasp if you came home more frequently. I 
was immensely impressed with this the other day 
m London. In England every newspaper praises 
the King. I read newspapers of all kinds, of all 
shades of opinion, and most of their columns were 
devoted editorially to praising and reporting the 
movements and popularity of the King, while in 
America no newspaper would consider itself worthy 
of circulation if it did not criticise the President. 
And yet every nation must have some ideals which 
the newspapers won't criticise, and which will in- 
spire loyalty and love in the citizen. What is ours? 
It is the old Constitution which has stood by us 
without change for 125 years. England has had 
twenty changes in her constitution in that time 
France has had fifteen or twenty new ones, Ger- 
many has had any number, even Russia and Turkey 
are recognizing the progress of liberty. But that 
old Constitution of ours prepared by those gentle- 
men in knee breeches, buckles, and powdered wigs 
stood for three millions of people along the line of 
our Atlantic Coast, and is equally able to take care 
of ninety millions within American Territory and 
ten millions in the Philippines, and the islands of 
the sea without, and it has not been changed in its 
essence in 125 years. That is our ideal, but re- 
cently there have been gentlemen with us who de- 
light to call themselves "Progressive" and "Insur- 
gents." I was associated with them for twelve years 
in the Senate very pleasantly, but publicly they be- 
lieve in unrest. They have been attacking the Con- 
stitution because they say all men do not have equal 
opportunities. Then came the trial of the trusts 

[129] 



ON THE THKESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

but recently the Supreme Court of the United States 
has rendered a decision which has swept the platform 
out from under them, and made the Constitution 
good for another 125 years. That great decision says 
that every trade combination in the United States 
which may be regarded as unlawful, must be judged 
by the light of reason, and if individuals or the cor- 
porations do not possess proper reasons for their 
business they can go to the Circuit Court and be ad- 
vised. So there is no danger of confiscation in the 
United States any more. If that decision had sus- 
tained the contention of the lawyers of the govern- 
ment that every combination whatsoever, whether 
good or bad, is illegal, we would have had chaos, 
and the greatest panic the world ever knew, until 
we could have readjusted ourselves, but in the light 
of reason we are all right. In the light of reason 
the foolish virgins had no oil, so they were not al- 
lowed to the wedding feast, and by the light of rea- 
son the Standard Oil had too much — and must 
reorganize. 

We have another thing in our country in which 
we are superior to all others, and that is though we 
have parties we have no political animosities. The 
representatives of both parties in the Senate and the 
House of Representatives discuss in an academic 
way the things upon which they differ without per- 
sonal rancor or enmity. But when I was over in 
England the other day, I discovered that they had 
got to a point where we were at the close of the Civil 
War, with the same passions and the same bitterness 
— especially among the women. When the women 
are bitter in politics, you may make up your mind 
that a remarkable evolution is in progress. I was 
sitting the other night at dinner talking to a charm- 
ing Englishwoman of high social position and rank 

[130] 



CHAMBER OF COMMERCE SPEECH 

and of broad sympathies and benevolence, who is 
doing good in every way that will benefit her people, 
and somehow, as always happens now in England, 
the conversation switched round to the present po- 
litical crisis, and the enormous impending changes 
in their constitution — including the abolition of the 
Upper Chamber, and she said : "Do you know I wish 
we were back in the good old days. I would like to 
assist in hanging every member of the Government, 
and as for Winston Churchill I would like to see 
him tortured first, and then put on the string." I 
like Winston Churchill and respect his great abilities. 
I was fond of his father, and am a great admirer of 
his mother. He is a brilliant young man destined 
to a most promising future. I am a great admirer 
of Asquith. He is a very able statesman, and as an 
American I should feel bad to see him hung on a 
string. We have no such sentiment as that in the 
United States. Over in London they said to me: 
"How can you talk of arbitration and peace when 
you are trying to steal Canada indirectly?" Great 
Scott, gentlemen, we have got ice enough of our 
own. We keep eggs in cold storage for a year, and 
we have our own problems, which are quite suffi- 
cient. We have the Philippines — whose people say 
they want to be free, in a way that will permit them 
to do as they please, but leave us the expense of 
maintaining their government and protecting them. 
We have Guam, Hawaii, and Porto Rico, and we 
sometimes think we have got rid of Cuba. I also 
said to my English friends: "We have the South 
American Republics, who get all they can of Eng- 
lish, German, and French money, and then when a 
dreadnought goes over to collect it, they say to 
Uncle Sam: 'The sacred Monroe Doctrine must be 
safeguarded by you.' Our inventors at home are 

[131] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

in the way of helping everybody. There is Mr. Bur- 
bank, the wizard of California, Not long ago he 
visited Pittsburgh, and when he went home he 
commenced practising on the succulent which we 
all love so well — the pea — and he has succeeded in 
producing a square pea which will not roll off the 
blade of multi-millionaires who still eat with a knife. 
Well, my friends, I think the sentiment of this 
Fourth of July Banquet — I have been to nearly all 
that this Chamber has celebrated, and each one has 
had some sentiment of its own — all of them for in- 
ternational commerce and good will — but this Fourth 
of July Banquet voices another and more universal 
sentiment than any of its predecessors, and its grand 
apostle is our guest here to-night — Baron d'Estour- 
nelles de Constant. This is a celebration largely in 
the interest of Peace by Arbitration. Commencing 
with Abraham Lincoln I have known every Presi- 
dent of the United States very well, known them 
in their peculiarities, in their faults, in their good 
qualities, and in their great ones. For everyone of 
them was a great man, or he could not have been 
by the suffrage of the American people President of 
the United States. But of all those Presidents, how 
many will be remembered 100 years from now? Lin- 
coln, whom I first knew, yes, so long as the Re- 
public endures. Grant? Yes, but among the rest! 
Now we have a President who differs from all others 
I have known, because of characteristics I have 
never met in a politician anywhere, and I think it 
is because his education has been not political but 
judicial. He has been most of his life on the bench, 
but there it has been his habit to listen patiently to 
the arguments of both sides, to render his decision 
according to the law and the Constitution, and then 
dismiss it, never thinking of himself one moment, 

[132] 



CHAMBER OF COMMERCE SPEECH 

nor how that decision would affect his own fortunes, 
and so in the three years in which Taft has been 
President he has succeeded in securing the enact- 
ment into law of more of his recommendations than 
almost any President of my time, and yet the under- 
lying sentiment with him has been, "This is right. 
The majority of my people may be against it, but I 
think they are mistaken. My judgment is it is the 
best for the country. I cannot for a moment con- 
sider its effect upon my future." Mr. Taft, a man 
unaffected by passion, partisanship, or faction at 
home has looked abroad over the great field of 
international amity, brought to his attention while 
Governor of the Philippines, and has sent forth to 
the world (and that is to be his monument) a Mes- 
sage of Peace. While all nations are building larger 
battleships, increasing the number of their armies, 
and offering the highest rewards for inventions in 
destructive machinery and explosives, this calm Ex- 
ecutive of the United States conceives the idea that 
possibly even now there may be brought about such 
relations between the different countries of the 
world that war may be abolished and peace estab- 
lished, and commerce and amity be the governing 
principles of international relations. Taft will live, 
because a principle like this, once started never 
stops, and as President of the United States he has 
already secured the cordial assent of Great Britain 
and France, and he will live because he has brought 
into the relations of the people of the world a recog- 
nition of the principle which was founded on Cal- 
vary, and which has never yet been realized. Peace 
among nations and brotherhood among men. 



[133] 



Address at the Meeting in Memory of Cornelius 
N. Bliss, held by the Republican Club of the 
City of New York, November 5, 1911. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: 

It is a most appropriate and fitting function of 
this Club that it should meet to pay tribute to the 
memory of Cornelius N. Bliss. He was one of the 
oldest of its members and one of its Presidents. He 
was one of the most active of our associates in the 
public work of this organization. The principles for 
which the club stands and for which it has always 
labored were the ones in which he firmly believed. 
That belief was not perfunctory nor found its 
activity in the mere expression of opinion. He 
thought business prosperity and the employment of 
labor and capital and content and happiness among 
the people were dependent upon these principles be- 
ing crystallized into laws. With that view he gave 
without stint both personal effort and contributions 
for the promotion of the cause. 

When he came to New York in 1866, forty-five 
years ago, mercantile conditions in this city were 
such that a newcomer had only a fighting chance in 
the field. Our merchants had a national and inter- 
national reputation and were jealous to the point of 
active hostilities of any competition in their various 
lines. A. T. Stewart, the Grinnells, Howland, As- 
pinwall, and a few others, were the merchant princes 
of the times. The financial situation made the con- 
duct of enterprises, and especially the starting of 
new ones, exceedingly hazardous. We had just come 

[134] 



IN MEMORY OF CORNELIUS N. BLISS 

out of the Civil War and the country had not ad- 
justed itself to normal conditions. We had an irre- 
deemable currency and as its necessary adjunct the 
wildest speculation. The methods now of limiting 
competition are for those who are engaged in the 
various branches of the production of articles based 
upon a common product of raw material to combine 
into great corporations. Against this method of 
either preventing or of limiting competition, Con- 
gress, Legislatures and courts are actively at war. 
Methods of accomplishing the same results forty- 
five years ago were more effective and much simpler. 
The day of the great corporations had not arrived, 
but the day of the masterful man was here, as it has 
been for thousands of years, and will be for thou- 
sands of years to come, in every community, great 
or small. A. T. Stewart was the pioneer in what is 
now known as the department store. He was a 
genius in his line and his shrewdest and keenest com- 
mercial sense was based upon a liberal education. 
When a competitor was doing a prosperous business 
in one of the lines which he sold, he immediately 
investigated his condition. If it was cottons or silks 
or woolens, or what not, that was this merchant's 
specialty, Stewart soon became familiar with his 
financial standing, with the quality of his goods and 
with the elements of his success. Then by wide 
advertisements he would sell that special product 
away below cost, relying upon the profit in other de- 
partments to make up his own losses at the same 
time that this ruinous competition drove the com- 
petitor into bankruptcy. If he was a man of ability 
who was desirable, Stewart would annex him as an 
employee, but if there was no place the poor fellow 
joined the ranks of the unsuccessful and the unfor- 
tunate. It is an interesting question whether this 

[135] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

merciless method which no law could reach is bet- 
ter than combinations in a corporation, provided 
that corporation's activities are governed by proper 
supervision by a bureau of the government to pre- 
vent monopoly and restraint of trade. 

Mr. Bliss had to meet, as his business grew, the 
full force of this terrific onslaught. It shows how 
thoroughly he had studied his field, how well he was 
entrenched in his sources of supply and distribution 
that he successfully resisted the attack and com- 
pelled recognition from these powerful interests as 
one who was able both to take care of himself, and, 
if the struggle became too intense, to make it ex- 
ceedingly uncomfortable for them. 

The frightful waste of the Civil War, the wild 
speculation which followed, the trafficking in legisla- 
tion to secure franchises to be madly promoted, 
culminated in six years after Mr. Bliss entered upon 
business here in the disastrous panic of 1873. Only 
one like it, that of 1837, had any parallel with us 
and few had been known in the whole history of 
finance and commerce. The Stock Exchange closed, 
banks suspended, mercantile houses went into bank- 
ruptcy, and thousands were reduced from affluence 
to poverty and other thousands saw business which 
they had spent a lifetime in building up shattered 
to pieces. A statistician has proved that only one 
out of two hundred of the men who enter mercan- 
tile business in New York survive the strain and 
competition. The rest sooner or later succumb. But 
in the panic of 1873 this average of one in two hun- 
dred went to a point where it might safely be said 
that more than two-thirds of the business men came 
to grief. It was eminently a time of the survival of 
the fittest. Only level heads who had resisted the 
speculations in which vast fortunes were made and 

[ 136] 



IN MEMORY OF CORNELIUS N. BLISS 

lost between the close of the Civil War and the 
panic, far-sighted brains which had foreseen the 
storm and prepared for it, were equal to the emer- 
gency. It is a tribute to the sagacity of Mr. Bliss, 
to the standing which he had attained in these few 
years with the banks, and among his associates and 
competitors, that he came out of this terrific struggle 
with his credit enhanced and his position invul- 
nerable. 

After that his life as a merchant was one of widen- 
ing influence and operations. The financial disturb- 
ances which shook the country, disturbed business 
and ruined individuals and firms, growing out of the 
resumption of specie payments, of the silver craze, 
of the gold standard, were all foreseen and provided 
for by this able, accomplished and masterful man. 
So that years before his death he was, in its best 
sense, a merchant prince and had so systematized, 
co-ordinated and perfected his great business that 
he could give more and more of his time to public 
affairs and to his duties as a citizen. It is this phase 
of his career as a public citizen that especially in- 
terests us. The New York merchant and business 
man is proverbially neglectful of civic duties and 
unwilling to assume the burdens of civic respon- 
sibilities. 

When I was a young man I was given a dinner by 
the leading merchants of New York for something 
which I had done for the city as a Member of the 
Legislature. I think it was in 1863. Having lived 
all my life in the country where everybody partici- 
pates in political activities, I was amazed to discover 
that of the thirty gentlemen at this table, represent- 
ing three-fourths of the wealth and great business 
of the city, not one of them ever voted except in 
presidential elections, none of them belonged to 

[ 137 ] 



ON" THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

political clubs or party organizations. All of them 
united in vigorous denunciations of the corruptions 
of public life and the untrustworthiness of men who 
held public office. These were conditions which they 
as a united body could have at any time corrected, 
but they not only refused to serve, they put a ban 
upon the professional or business activities of those 
who were willing to enter upon the duties of public 
life. 

Mr. Bliss represented an entirely different class of 
great merchants. Following the injunction to "Be 
diligent in business, serving the Lord" meant for 
him in practice diligence in business as much as any 
successful man, but he believed the best service he 
could render to the Lord outside his business duties 
was active, intelligent and helpful citizenship. He 
believed that neither his business as a manufacturer 
and a merchant nor any other would be perma- 
nently successful unless a protective tariff, a sound 
currency and the gold standard was part of the law 
of the land. He believed that it was his highest 
duty to labor for the success of the party and the 
candidates which would secure this legislation. He 
recognized, as few men did then, but as everybody 
does now, the intimate relation there is between 
business and politics. Almost immediately on be- 
coming a resident of our city he joined the local Re- 
publican organization. Throughout his whole life 
he was an organization party man and at the same 
time a practical reformer. Twice during his career, 
when the county organization seemed inefficient or 
corrupt, he organized and headed committees which 
succeeded in bringing about the necessary reform. 
With rare courage for one whose business could be 
so easily affected by municipal legislation and mu- 
nicipal officials, he organized and headed commit- 

[138] 



IN MEMORY OF CORNELIUS N. BLISS 

tees for the purification of the government of this 
great city. 

In all this long and active career, extending over 
half a century, he never was an office seeker. He 
believed that office should come to a man and not 
be solicited. The party wanted at different times so 
rare a character to strengthen its position by becom- 
ing its candidate for the various offices within its 
gift, but he declined everything except at the earnest 
solicitation of President McKinley of the Secretary- 
ship of the Interior. The unselfishness of his po- 
litical activities is best illustrated by the positions 
which he did take. For four successive Presidential 
campaigns he was the Treasurer of the National 
Committee. There is no place in party work which 
involves so much labor, so much criticism and so 
little applause. He accepted the treasurership of the 
National Committee in the second Harrison cam- 
paign because he saw that there had come about one 
of those revulsions in public feeling which might 
lead to disaster to the party he loved and to the 
principles he considered essential for the public wel- 
fare. The people wanted a change and no effort 
could check their desire. The change came and he 
saw in its results all the business disasters which he 
had been predicting throughout his active life. He 
saw what he regarded as the greatest bulwark of 
prosperity of business in the tariff assailed and 
changed. He saw the closing of mills and multitudes 
thrown out of employment by results brought about 
by legislation which he abhorred. When the cam- 
paign came for the first election of McKinley he 
again accepted the treasurership, because he be- 
lieved that a return to old policies was the salvation 
of his country and of himself in his business rela- 
tions. No one contributed more to the success of 

[139] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

President McKinley and the restoration of Repub- 
lican policies than did Mr. Bliss. 

We are a peculiar people. We are fond of experi- 
ments in every department of life. We take larger 
chances in business and greater risks in experiment 
than any industrial nation in the world. Prosperity 
does not satisfy us; we want more. Within certain 
almost defined cycles we as a people need to go to 
school — the school of experience. A generation 
comes upon the stage which has forgotten or is too 
young to remember the teachings of the past. When 
these periods arrive, and they will in the future as 
they have in the past, the lesson which is taught by 
disasters to business, to employment and to every 
form of activity, will bring about again the practice 
of the principles which have proved successful and 
they will prevail until the period of experiment has 
again arrived. 

So, Mr. Bliss, feeling that the first four years of 
McKinley had not yet consolidated into permanency 
the measures in which he believed, undertook this 
same difficult and disagreeable task for the third 
time and in the Roosevelt campaign for the fourth 
of Treasurer of the National Committee. He ap- 
plied to this delicate and perilous position principles 
upon which he had conducted his own business. 
The books were perfectly kept and the accounting 
was complete. Not a breath of suspicion, not a 
charge of any kind, ever assailed the treasurer in 
these four great campaigns in which millions were 
raised, part of it by himself, and all of it passed 
through his hands. 

There is one place in the Cabinet which is in a 
measure the despair of every President. All others 
of his advisers but the Secretary of the Interior 
can win applause and fame. But the Secretary of 

[ 140] 



IN MEMORY OF CORNELIUS N. BLISS 

the Interior has against him constant pressure, and 
if he is upright, aggressive and intelligent, he will re- 
ceive the virulent abuse and misrepresentation of 
the most powerful interests in the country. Land 
hunger would sacrifice every right of the Indian and 
take from him the land upon which he lives and the 
home in which he dwells. If the Secretary objects 
he can expect only investigating committees and un- 
limited abuse. The exploiters of national resources 
wish to monopolize them and they form syndicates 
so powerful and backed by so much newspaper sup- 
port and Congressional influence that if the Secre- 
tary of the Interior fails to yield to their demands 
he becomes the enemy of progress and the foe of the 
people. A large number of Indian contractors and 
Indian agents, who engage in practices which are 
often corrupt and sometimes inhuman, have power- 
ful friends to protect them and easy ways of reach- 
ing the public ear against an uncompromising public 
official. It was to clean this Augean stable that 
President McKinley summoned to his aid the great 
reputation, incorruptible integrity, unsurpassed busi- 
ness judgment and executive ability of Cornelius N. 
Bliss. When this high but disagreeable task had 
been completed to the entire satisfaction of the 
President, the Secretary of the Interior asked to be 
released that he might return to his neglected per- 
sonal affairs, and at the same time give that large 
measure which he had always so freely bestowed as 
a private citizen to the public service. 

Gentlemen, we of this Club who met him in the 
intimacy of this family circle saw in the successful 
man of business not the uncompromising reformer, 
not the rigid financier, not the active politician, but 
the most genial, companionable and lovable of men. 

[141] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OP EIGHTY 

Going to his reward when nearing four score, he has 
left behind him a superb example for American 
youth and filled a brilliant page in the history ol 
his country. 



[142] 



Speech at the Dinner of the New England So- 
ciety of New York, December 22, 1911, in 
Response to the Toast: "The Puritan Survival." 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: 

For over forty years it has been my privilege to 
attend, more or less frequently, the annual dinners 
of the New England Society of New York. At these 
meetings I have heard many admirable presentations 
in response to Forefathers' Day, but few, if any 
of them, reached the high level of the speech just 
delivered by Dr. Frothingham. He has caught and 
portrayed the spirit of the founders, and its influ- 
ence in the development of government in succeed- 
ing generations, with a comprehensive and broad- 
minded grasp of the situation which will place in 
our records a classic and a model. Such an occasion 
is suggestive with reminiscence. There have been 
famous nights with this Society of national and 
international significance. In that period great 
orators from all over the country have here sprung 
into fame, increased their reputations or lost them. 
The finest original wit of our period, who was Presi- 
dent, and a frequent speaker, was William M. 
Evarts. In variety and genius in portraying and 
arousing emotions and spontaneous eloquence, we 
had here Henry Ward Beecher. The list would in- 
clude nearly every man whose name has been asso- 
ciated with American history during the last half 
century. 

I recall one night which was significant, dramatic 
and historical. The passions of the Civil War were 

[143] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

not wholly dissipated. It was still possible to arouse 
enthusiasm and to make political capital upon sla- 
very and disunion. General Sherman in an im- 
promptu speech, full of that nervous fire which was 
his characteristic, threw a picture on the wall of the 
disbandment of the Union Army, the triumphant 
march of the soldiers past the President and the re- 
turn of the veterans to prosperous homes and their 
various vocations. It was a picture of grand tri- 
umph that equalled the historic description of the 
wonderful processions of Roman conquerors down 
the Appian Way into the imperial city. A young 
man from the South came next. He drew a most 
marvelous and pathetic picture of the Confederate 
soldiers, beaten but undismayed, ragged and foot- 
sore, going back to farms which had been ravaged 
by the armies of both sides, the fences down, the 
houses gone, the stock disappeared, and then, speak- 
ing as a young man for the new South, he pictured 
the regeneration which had come in agriculture, in 
industries, in the development of resources, in the 
creation of cities, towns, hamlets and homes out 
of all this misery by these heroes of the same race 
but inspired by different ideas. By that speech 
Henry W. Grady leaped into national fame. But 
these two addresses, one from the great soldier, and 
the other from the representative of the new South, 
published everywhere and read in every household, 
advanced the cause of reunion between the two sec- 
tions of the country more than could have been ac- 
complished by half a century of discussion and legis- 
lation. 

In a way this night to which I have referred illus- 
trates the effectiveness of the dominant principles 
of the Pilgrim idea — "free speech." The Pilgrims 
were reformers. They were about the only real ones 

[ 144 ] 



"the puritan survival " 

of their period. Madame Roland, standing at the 
foot of the scaffold, as she ascended the steps cried 
out: 

"Oh, Liberty! in thy name what crimes are com- 
mitted." 

So reform, which is always popular, is the well- 
worn ladder of ambition, demagoguery and greed. 
There is the reformer who quickly grasps the passion 
of the hour and by fanning it into flame becomes its 
leader and gets into Congress or higher. There is 
the other who is part demagogue and part crank and 
wholly an agitator, who contributes little to the 
progress of the world; but there is last the man of 
foresight, courage and patriotism, who is always in 
advance of his time, not so far ahead but his con- 
temporaries can catch up, but who is far enough 
to blaze the way and lead them by reason toward 
light and liberty. To this latter class the Pilgrims 
preeminently belong. They lived in an age when 
might made right, when it was considered entirely 
proper to seize the goods of others if you had the 
power and needed them. But when the Mayflower 
anchored off Cape Cod and a boat with the explorers 
went ashore and the Indians fled leaving behind the 
corn which they had stored for the winter, it was 
promptly appropriated and taken on board the ship. 
This was in accordance with the principles of the 
age. The Pilgrims needed the corn, without it they 
could not have planted for the next year's harvest, 
but they left a note saying that they would pay for 
it v/henever the Indians called and presented proper 
vouchers. The fact that they left no address did 
not militate against the merit of the case. It was 
the beginning of that beneficent principle, now rec- 
ognized everywhere among civilized nations, of the 
sanctity of property in the hands of the weak. 

[ 1^5] 



ON" THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

Though the old rule still prevails in the partition 
of Africa by the great powers — thank Heaven, this 
government of the Pilgrims has no part in that ex- 
propriation. 

In the Pilgrim period all governments had one set 
of laws for kings and nobles and another for the 
people, one set of rights for caste and privilege and 
another for those who had neither. But the Pil- 
grims in the cabin of the Mayflower in their immor- 
tal charter said, "We will found a government of 
just and equal laws." That was a principle which 
was understandable, and again the Pilgrims were 
in advance, but not too far in advance, of the period 
in which they lived and labored. It took a long time, 
even in our own development, to work out that prin- 
ciple. The Puritan who came afterward to the Mas- 
sachusetts colonies repudiated it utterly. But there 
is nothing so dynamic as an idea which has in it the 
principle of generation and regeneration. Winthrop 
said, "If all are to be Governors, who is to govern." 
There being no lawyers, New England existed for a 
hundred years without lawyers, and as they recog- 
nized the necessity of government they confided it 
to their ministers and created a theocracy. The 
government of the ministers demonstrated the ne- 
cessity in the enactment of laws of the assistance of 
lawyers. They banished Roger Williams and Anne 
Hutchinson because they preached religious tolera- 
tion, and in banishing them the dynamics of reli- 
gious toleration began to expand and in less than 
half a century that had become part of both Pilgrim 
and Puritan policy. 

These hard-headed, hard-working, close-thinking 
forefathers believed in representative government. 
Though they had the town meeting, a perfect de- 
mocracy, for their village and local affairs, yet they 

[ 146] 



"the puritan survival 1 ' 

felt that there should be trained men selected and 
elected to make their laws, so they left it first to the 
clergy and then selected in their localities the men 
who could give the time and who were best equipped 
to be members of the Legislatures and Congress, and 
to be governors and judges. 

In some of the newer States they are getting away 
from this idea. We are told now that the best gov- 
ernment is that which goes to the whole people with 
all its laws and all its legislation, that the initiative, 
the referendum and the recall place the people in 
possession of the power which they have lost through 
selecting men to be their governors, their judges, 
their legislators, their mayors and their aldermen. 

I met the other night at dinner the Governor of 
Oregon, the foremost State in putting into prac- 
tice these policies, a charming, capable and eloquent 
gentleman. His mission, and that of the Governors, 
was not political but to make known the products 
of their States. Of course, one of the most attractive 
is the Oregon apple. He showed how Oregon re- 
versed her new principle of government by mass 
meeting in placing apples on the market. The farm- 
ers select a committee of experts. The individual 
farmer is not permitted to market as of old, when his 
good apples were on top, the moderate ones in the 
middle and the bad in the rest of the barrel. These 
experts, representatives of the mass, select the best 
apples and sell them as such and the second best 
and sell them as such, and make the rest into hard 
cider to be drunk in prohibition communities. Now, 
the distinguished, eloquent and able Senator from 
Oregon is the best advocate and exponent of the 
political practices of his State. His view condensed 
is that the composite citizen, which means the whole 
mass, is more intelligent for executive duties than 

[147 1 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

any governor, or for judicial duties than any judge, 
or for legislation than any legislator, and, therefore, 
we need only a framework of officers without power 
or authority to be instructed by this composite man. 
So, instead of having able executives and learned 
judges and tried and experienced legislators, these 
officers are rubber stamps for the composite man. 
But the composite man, acting as a mass upon sub- 
jects that he cannot possibly act upon intelligently 
if he attends to his business, is necessarily composed 
of the selected apples, the specked apples and the 
bad apples. His selection of representatives is usu- 
ally excellent, but his executive acts, judicial deci- 
sions and legislation under such conditions are per- 
meated with the inebriating qualities of the headiest 
hard cider. 

Our forefathers in developing the country left the 
largest freedom of action to the individual citizen. 
The common law was the spirit of their jurispru- 
dence and judicial decisions. Their legislation was 
to promote agriculture and industries and develop 
resources. They were not equal to the enactment of 
a Sherman Anti-Trust Law, and would not have 
understood it if they had been. Shakespeare says, 
"Some are born great, some achieve greatness and 
some have greatness thrust upon them." John Sher- 
man was an excellent Senator and a distinguished 
Secretary of the Treasury, but he would have 
dropped into the oblivion of Senators and Secre- 
taries of the Treasury out of office and been forgot- 
ten except that the trust law which bears his name 
has kept him before the public more than any states- 
man of his period and made him immortal. Now 
comes ex-Senator Edmunds, the distinguished 
Chairman of the Judiciary Committee which had 
charge of that bill, perfected, reported and passed 

[ 148] 



"the puritan survival" 

it, and he openly informs us that there is not in it 
one single line of John Sherman. This is not going 
to take away the fame of Sherman; resting solely 
upon a myth it is in no more danger than the name 
of America though not discovered by Amerigo Ves- 
pucci. There is not a single thing about that law 
which is not Pilgrim or Puritan, but while it affects 
every industry in the country, it has lain practically 
dormant for twenty years. The main reason being 
that nobody really understood it. National Conven- 
tions of both parties in their platforms resolved that 
it must be amended, but it was such a fetish in the 
public mind that one party was afraid to touch it 
and the other daren't. It was interpreted at one 
time to prohibit all big business and restore the 
country to the retail store, the windmill and the mill 
pond. That would have prevented all develop- 
ment. It has at other times been differently inter- 
preted. So far as doing business under it was con- 
cerned during these twenty years, the business man 
felt that they were in a position which was described 
by that famous revivalist at the beginning of the last 
century, Lorenzo Dow. He preached a sermon in 
Peekskill, which was a strong Calvinistic neighbor- 
hood, the echo of which still lingers in the hills and 
valleys. In this he said in regard to predestination 
that its practical effect was "You will and you 
won't; you shall and you shan't; you can and you 
can't ; you will be damned if you do and you will be 
damned if you don't." Happily, now the Supreme 
Court of the United States has shown that it has 
more courage and more wisdom than Congress, and 
has declared that the shackles shall be taken away 
from legitimate and rightful business by interpret- 
ing the law according to the light of reason, which 

[149] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

means the common law, and so we get back to the 
foundation of the Pilgrim Fathers. 

It is unfortunate for business that we not only 
legislate after the horse is stolen, but we permit and 
encourage first the stealing of the horse. Take the 
formation of the steel trust, for instance, and I am 
neither advocating nor defending that corporation. 
There never was so much publicity with any busi- 
ness. Its magnitude attracted the attention and 
fired the imagination not only of this country but of 
the world. The newspapers daily had columns de- 
scribing the processes of organization, the plants be- 
longing to other corporations and to individuals and 
firms which were bought and how much was paid 
for them and what the profits were to the seller and 
the purchasers. Even Mr. Carnegie, going out of 
business as he was by that merger, suspended his 
usual rule of reticence and told the world how much 
he received for his interests and what, at five per 
cent, the income would be per year. The subscrip- 
tions to the syndicate were public and universally 
understood and largely participated in. There were 
no protests in the press; there was not a voice raised 
in Congress; the judicial machinery of the govern- 
ment was motionless, the calendars of the courts 
were clean of law suits, and the Sherman Law was 
on the statute books the same as it is to-day. Now 
after this great business machinery has got into 
working order and the stocks are distributed among 
hundreds of thousands of investors, and nearly three 
hundred thousand laborers are dependent for the 
living of themselves and their families upon its 
operations, it is discovered that it is under the con- 
demnation of the Sherman Law and must be dis- 
banded. 

A Yankee, with Puritan ancestors, who was a 

[150] 



"the puritan survival" 

stockholder in the Standard Oil Company, came to 
me the other day for advice. He said, "I hold ten 
shares in the Standard Oil Company. I now dis- 
cover that I was at that time a monopolist and a 
bad citizen. The company has been purged of sin 
by a reorganization under the direction of the court. 
It has been divided into thirty-seven different cor- 
porations. The interests of the stockholders are 
widely different in each of these corporations. I 
have received a notice from one of them that I have 
a one hundred and seventy-four three hundred and 
five one-thousandth interest in a share of stock in 
that corporation, and upon it they have declared a 
dividend of two dollars a share. Now, I can't figure 
out what ought' to be the size of the check which 
they will send me or whether it will be right when 
it arrives. The only thing I do know is that now 
I am an honest man and patriotic citizen." 

My friends, the spirit of Pilgrim liberty is that it 
recognizes the rewards which come to ability, in- 
dustry and thrift and has no fear of bigness, unless 
that bigness is used to monopolize, to restrain or to 
oppress the little fellow. The true way to meet that 
situation, the spirit of Pilgrim liberty in which it 
can be met and must be met if it is to be properly 
solved, has already been demonstrated in the treat- 
ment of the railroads by the Interstate Commerce 
Commission at Washington and the Public Service 
Commission in the State of New York. They do 
not disband the corporations and create confusion, 
they do not disturb the business world by uncertain- 
ties, but vested with the supreme power of the peo- 
ple, they prevent oppression, wrongdoing and favor- 
itism, and promote publicity and enforce a square 
deal for everybody. The watchword of the future 

[151] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OP EIGHTY 

must be this demonstrated principle of government 
regulation of all great industries. 

The safety valve of free institutions is discussion, 
publicity and free speech. 

I read recently an account of a meeting in some 
western city of a convention in which they com- 
plained by resolution that the West and the South 
have not a proper place in American history because 
the Yankees have written all the histories. Well, 
why? Because they could write histories which 
people would read. Ink and paper is just as cheap 
and as plentiful in every part of the country as in 
New England or New York. Culture is not wholly 
confined to New England. They have a Browning 
Society in Chicago. There used to be a weekly 
luncheon at Parker's Hotel in Boston and around 
the table were gathered Ralph Waldo Emerson, 
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Longfellow, Whittier, Judge 
Rockwell Hoar, Theodore Parker and Hawthorne. 
The contributions of these authors have made 
American literature classic and apparently they 
have no successors. I cannot help thinking that 
environment and tradition had much to do with 
their development. 

Nothing so promotes and accelerates the expan- 
sion of a good idea as persecution. I remember a 
public meeting in New York addressed by Wendell 
Phillips. On account of enormous trade interests 
with the South and prejudice against the negro, 
there was very little sentiment anywhere in the 
North for abolition of slavery. Wendell Phillips 
was the greatest orator to whom I ever listened, and 
I have heard most of them. Captain Rynders, a 
Tammany brave of that period, organized a mob to 
break up that meeting, and succeeded. The story 
of that riot and the suppression of Phillips' speech 

[152] 



"the puritan survival" 

promoted a discussion of slavery all over the coun- 
try which advanced by more than a half century 
Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipation. 

There is not much popular feeling in the United 
States on behalf of this movement for peace and 
arbitration, so happily and wisely inaugurated by 
President Taft. We are too near our war of senti- 
ment for Cuba, and too much absorbed in our busi- 
ness affairs and too distant from any possibility of 
attack upon ourselves for the people to give much 
thought to the subject, but when four hundred nat- 
uralized citizens, inspired by European and not 
American politics, broke up the meeting in Carnegie 
Hall the other evening they gave an irresistible im- 
pulse to the demand of the American people for the 
ratification of these arbitration treaties. The men 
who broke up that meeting with a riot and sup- 
pressed the speeches of our most eminent citizens 
failed to understand the true meaning of American 
liberty, free speech and open discussion. A man 
complained to his neighbor that another neighbor 
greeted him with a slap on the breast that broke 
the cigars in his pocket, and he was prejudiced 
against that sort of affection, but he said, 'Til fix 
him so he will never do it again. I have replaced 
the cigars with two sticks of dynamite." 

The dynamic force of American liberty is before 
the world most conspicuously to-day in the young 
American Shuster, who has been appointed treasurer 
of the dying kingdom of Persia. The great powers 
were pacifying Persia apparently to divide her ter- 
ritory when her difficulties became insoluble, but 
this young American makes a contract with Persia 
to manage her finances, and soon finds that the coun- 
try is rich enough with stability to pay its debts and 
have orderly government. That means a revival of 

[153] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OP EIGHTY 

the Empire of Cyrus the Great under the auspices 
of a twenty-eight-year-old American. The Russian 
bear growls, the Cossacks occupy the country, the 
Czar's ministers say "Shuster must quit or war," 
and then Shuster, without army, without Cossacks, 
simply says, "I stand by my contract, and in Amer- 
ica such things are respected." In the Persian is 
revived a spark of patriotism which has lain dor- 
mant for five hundred years and he says, "We stand 
by Shuster no matter what happens," and the Eng- 
lish public, who when fully informed admire courage 
and fair play, are gradually getting behind Shuster. 

The cable in this evening's papers is that the Rus- 
sian Army has forced Persia to dismiss Shuster. It 
will do more than anything else to keep alive na- 
tional spirit in Persia and win for her the sympathy 
of the world. 

Now, my friends, how much have we changed? 
During the Revolutionary War the Duke de Lauzun 
arrived in Lebanon, Connecticut, with his hussars, 
a brilliant company composed of young French 
noblemen. His lieutenants were the Marquis de 
Chastellux and the Baron de Montesquieu. It was 
the home of Governor Trumbull. They were there 
for months. The Yankee girls got up for them pic- 
nics, sleigh rides, toboggan slides, skating and every 
form of New England amusement. The French 
noblemen enjoyed every minute of it intensely, ex- 
cept that at the banquets Governor Trumbull, ac- 
cording to the Puritan custom, insisted on a half 
hour of grace before meat. The curious thing about 
it all is that though these young Frenchmen were 
the most attractive men of their time and in bril- 
liant uniform and made love as the Yankee never 
could have done, they did not capture a single Amer- 
ican girl. These Yankee girls had only one absorbing 

[ 15*] 



"the puritan survival" 

idea and that was the success of the revolution and 
the formation of the Republic, and they became 
the mothers of the future governors and legislators 
and congressmen and judges of New England and 
of the country. The only difference if conditions 
were reversed to our time would be that the enter- 
tainments would have a different style and be 
equally enjoyable, but the girls would marry the 
noblemen. At the same time Sheldon's cavalry 
passed through Litchfield, Connecticut, on its way 
to join General Washington. The Reverend Judah 
Champion immediately opened the Litchfield 
Church and invited the cavalry in and offered a 
prayer which he was so proud of that he recorded 
it in the register. It is too long to repeat entire, 
but I will give you its spirit. At that time General 
Howe was on the ocean with reinforcements for Gen- 
eral Clinton in New York. The minister petitioned : 

"Oh! Lord, we view with terror and dismay the 
enemies of Thy holy religion. Wilt Thou send storm 
and tempest to toss them upon the sea and to over- 
whelm them in the mighty deep and scatter them 
to the uttermost parts of the earth! But, perad- 
venture, should any escape Thy vengeance, collect 
them again together, Oh ! Lord, as in the bottom of 
Thy hand, and let Thy lightnings play upon them. 
We beseech Thee, moreover, that Thou do gird up 
the loins of these, Thy servants, who are going forth 
to fight Thy battles. Make them strong men, that 
one shall chase a thousand, two shall put ten thou- 
sand to flight!" 

If conditions should be the same in our time would 
our clergy repeat that prayer? I think not. Instead 
they might have the same feeling, but they would 
pray for speedy and honorable peace and a recogni- 
tion of the efforts of the Red Cross Society. 

[155] 



ON THE THKESHOLD OP EIGHTY 

Gentlemen, to-night the old and the new, the 
founders and the descendants, commune together. 
We differ only from our ancestors in the changed 
conditions of the times, but, happily for the country 
for its present and its future, the ideas of the Pil- 
grims are still a constructive force in American 
progress. The schoolhouse and the church are not 
yet divorced, but they go together wherever Ameri- 
can citizens settle and organize communities. We 
welcome the stranger fleeing from oppression as our 
fathers did, but now with the government land ex- 
hausted and our population increasing we ask that 
the barriers be raised higher and higher that there 
may be no contamination of American citizenship. 



[156] 



Speech at the Annual Dinner of the Society of 
the Genesee, at the Hotel Knickerbocker, 
New York City, January 20, 1912. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: 

This meeting with the Society of the Genesee is 
charming both in its relations to the present and 
the past. In my own varied experience I have 
found that more pleasure can be had out of a poli- 
tical stumping tour than from any other exercises. 
For years it was my habit to take my vacation in 
this way, and start out to interview and inform my 
fellow citizens of my views of the policies necessary 
for the safety of the country from the early autumn 
until the frost was on the pumpkin. Sometimes 
indeed I have spoken in the early morning to a 
crowd gathered about the platform of the car in 
the biting air of Northern New York, with the snow 
beating upon us all. It was not cold enough, how- 
ever, to equal the experience of one of the charac- 
ters in Charles Lever's stories who, in making a 
speech to his shipmates and to the Esquimaux, 
found that his words froze and fell upon the ground 
as they were uttered until he stood up to his chin in 
a bank of his own eloquence. 

But the great value of this contact with the 
people is the knowledge it gives one of the varying 
conditions in his State of the different ideas of 
hospitality and conditions in the commonwealth. 
It is the best school in the world to study human 
nature. I have been a guest on these trips in the 
palatial home of the banker and the manufacturer, 

[157] 



OX THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

in the farm house of the farmer and the cottage of 
the artisan, the hospitality of each making the wel- 
come just as agreeable and the hospitality just as 
enjoyable in one place as the other. It is these 
trips, continued at intervals for half a century, 
which have made me believe that the most delight- 
ful section through which to travel is the Genesee 
Valley. There is a finish about its farms; there is 
a comfort about its homes; there is a general air 
of contentment and prosperity which is full of in- 
spiration. There is a genuineness in its hospitality 
which leaves the stump speaker with delightful 
recollections of people who have entertained him 
which he rejoices to recall and can never forget. 

But, then, every section of the State has its pe- 
culiarities and subjects in which it is most inter- 
ested. Along the northern counties, it is politics; 
by the Hudson, it is scenery and land speculation ; 
through the Mohawk Valley, it is manufactures; 
along the southern tier, it is politics again, but in 
the Genesee Valley, when the public exercises are 
over and the intimate conversation occurs between 
the close of the meeting and retiring to bed, it is 
generally the old families of the neighborhood. I 
became familiar with the characteristics, peculiari- 
ties, distinguishing traits and achievements of all 
the pioneer families of the Genesee Valley, and the 
narrator always claimed to be one of them. The 
idea of old families which has furnished so much 
material for the reformer and the jester is that the 
best of them is below ground. This, however, ap- 
plies in no respect to the old families of Western 
New York. A royal personage once said to me, "I 
am told in regard to your countrymen and country- 
women that I may recognize these because of their 
family and others must be barred because they have 

[158] 



THE SOCIETY OF THE GENESEE 

no family. Families with us date away back to 
early historical times from achievements in arms, 
from domains won by valor, from leaders of the cru- 
sades and from an unbroken ancestry of nobility 
running back hundreds of years before the discovery 
of America, while for the life of me I cannot make 
any distinction among you Americans, except to 
the extent to which you are companionable and 
agreeable. On that basis I love to meet and to 
entertain your countrymen and countrywomen and 
enjoy their talent, their wit, their humor, their 
conversational power, the agreeableness of your 
men and the charm of your women." But there is 
an old family distinction with us of which we may 
be proud. It is of the pioneers who settled among 
the Indian confederacy of the Six Nations and 
carved out of the wilderness the estates which by 
their energy and ability they turned into produc- 
tive farms which added to the wealth and prosper- 
ity of the commonwealth. With them the rule of 
three generations from shirt-sleeve to shirt-sleeve 
did not prevail. They reared large families of ener- 
getic sons and of spirited and fascinating daughters. 
While some remained upon the farms, others built 
up the cities and the villages, developed the water 
powers and created manufactories or went into the 
professions and became ministers, doctors, lawyers, 
judges, journalists, legislators and members of 
Congresses and the Cabinets of Presidents. 

I remember being entertained by the local banker 
in one of these charming places along the Genesee 
nearly fifty years ago. His conversation was of 
these pioneer families. He said, "One of the lead- 
ers recently died and it is a great loss to our com- 
munity." He was original in every way and his 
originality was one of the sources of his great suc- 

F 159 ] 



ON" THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

cess. I went in to see a widow of another one of 
these pioneers, and she commenced lamenting the 
loss of her friend. She said, "You do not know 
how I miss him now that nearly every one of the 
people with whom I was intimate are dead and 
gone. He used to come in here nearly every even- 
ing and place his chair in front of the fireplace 
and put his feet on the mantelpiece and light his 
pipe and talk and sleep and snore and be so 
sociable." 

But what would the Genesee Valley be without 
its capital at Rochester, in many respects the most 
beautiful city in the world? The sons and daugh- 
ters of these pioneers, who had been brought up 
with plenty of fresh air upon the farm when they 
established their homes at Rochester, made that 
city unique in so laying out their lots and build- 
ing their houses that there was land and a garden 
about each residence. "The city in the country,, 
and the country in the city" is the evidence of the 
genius of the founders of Rochester. I always loved 
in these campaign excursions to wind up in your 
city. There was something about the dinner be- 
forehand, with the leading men of all parties, in 
the responsiveness of the audience and in the re- 
ception and the supper afterward which made the 
entertainment the crowning event of the campaign. 

The natural pride of the Rochester citizens is 
always delightful. I remember as we stood on the 
bank of the gorge where the Genesee flows, when it 
flows, that the local enthusiast said, "Here is a 
gorge finer than Niagara. Here is a waterfall of 
greater height than Niagara. It would in all re- 
spects be superior to Niagara if it had water." This 
reminded me of a story which was told me by that 
most delightful of wits and raconteurs, the late Mr, 

[160] 



THE SOCIETY OF THE GENESEE 

William M. Evarts. He said that stopping at Cape 
Cod one summer the guests were always complain- 
ing of the fishy flavor of the ducks, and the indig- 
nant landlord finally said, "Ladies and gentlemen, 
the Cape Cod duck is a finer duck than the canvas- 
back; its plumage is handsomer; it weighs more; it 
can fly higher; it can dive deeper, and it would taste 
just as good if it would eat the wild celery, but, 
damn him, he won't eat it." 

It is the habit of the young graduate to take 
Rome for his comparisons in all civic addresses. So, 
what is the difference between Rome, New York, 
and Rochester? It took ancient Rome five hun- 
dred years to annex Attica, to conquer Palmyra and 
lead her Queen Zenobia at the chariot wheels of 
the Emperor, to have its legions tramp over the 
plains of Ilion and to make contributary to its 
greatness Syracuse and Utica. Ancient Rome made 
these conquests by the sacrifice of millions of lives 
and slaughter and devastation which make the most 
ghastly volumes of history, but Rochester has, 
within fifty years almost, by methods of peace and 
regeneration, drawn to her marts of trade and her 
centers of commerce the production and the citizens 
of Attica and Palmyra and Ilion, and even drawn 
from the commercial walls which surround Syracuse 
and Utica a part of their commerce and their trade 
and annexed to her triumphal car even Rome itself. 
Happily the engineer who surveyed the wilderness 
of Western New York was a classical scholar. He 
saw in imagination the glories of the ancient world 
reproduced in America. So he dotted his map with 
these classic names for future cities, and they are 
all within a hundred miles of Rochester. 

Rochester has a distinct connection with my re- 
lations to one of the episodes and tragedies of 

[161] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OP EIGHTY 

American public life. I allude to the candidacy 
and the tragic death of Horace Greeley. I had re- 
tired from politics in 1872 with the determination 
to make up in my profession what I had lost in 
office when Mr. Greeley, who was my neighbor in 
the country, came one night to my house. He said, 
"Chauncey, I have been nominated for President 
by the Liberal Republicans. I cannot win except 
I get the indorsement of the Democrats. I am told 
that if I can demonstrate, which I believe to be true, 
that the majority of the Republican party is with 
me, that then I will receive the Democratic indorse- 
ment and will be elected President by the largest 
vote ever cast since Washington. In order to dem- 
onstrate my Republican following, my friends have 
organized a mass meeting at Rochester which they 
say will be entirely Republican, and will include 
all the leaders of that overwhelmingly Republican 
section of our State, Western New York. Now, it 
is necessary to have a speaker of State and National 
reputation, and they have selected you." "Well," 
I said, "Mr. Greeley, I have retired from politics; 
besides, it goes tremendously against me to break 
with my party, and I never have done it." He 
said, "Chauncey, I have supported you every time 
you were elected to the Legislature and while there 
and while Secretary of State and in all your ambi- 
tions with all my strength in the Tribune, and I did 
not think I would be treated in this way." That 
was too much for me. I said, "Very well, Mr. 
Greeley, I will go." The meeting was held in that 
auditorium with the best acoustics in the country, 
Corinthian Hall. The crowds jammed the streets 
for blocks. The meeting was presided over by 
Judge Henry R. Selden of the Court of Appeals, one 
of the best loved Republicans in our common- 

[162] 



THE SOCIETY OF THE GENESEE 

wealth. There were a hundred Vice-Presidents 
and a hundred Secretaries whom I had met in every 
campaign since '56 as the Republican leaders in 
all the counties in Western New York. The meet- 
ing was such a phenomenal success that Mr. Gree- 
ley's friends secured without trouble the Demo- 
cratic indorsement for his nomination as a Liberal 
Republican. In October North Carolina went 
Republican. In November, all of these men went 
back to their allegiance to the Republican candi- 
date. General Grant was elected by the largest 
majority known up to that period. That was the 
first progressive movement in the great parties of 
our country since the organization of the govern- 
ment. History so frequently repeats itself that 
what happened once is most likely to occur again. 
I commend this instance to the cheerful considera- 
tion of our guest of honor here to-night, President 
Taft. 

When I recall your attractive city, the exquisite 
beauty of your valley, and particularly the home- 
likeness of your villages and farms, I wonder how 
so many of you escaped and came to New York. 
Is it the fascination of Wall Street, or the attrac- 
tions of the Great White Way? I know from my 
own experience as a country boy that there is no 
escape once within the sphere of their influence, 
of the lure of the crowd and the lights of the Me- 
tropolis. But I think that you rather have come 
here upon philanthropic missions in order that the 
lambs of our city may be fed upon the invigorating 
fodder — the stocks and bonds — of your trolley, your 
water power and your electric light companies. 

We are here of all politics, and of no politics, but 
as a retired statesman calmly surveying the field 
and holding the scales in equipoise for the present, 

[163] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

I must say that it seems to me inexcusable cruelty 
that the peace-loving, distinguished and erudite 
college professor Woodrow Wilson should be as- 
sailed at the same time on either side by two of the 
most militant colonels in the country, Colonel 
Roosevelt and Colonel Bryan. 

We are business men here to-night, away from its 
cares and responsibilities to dwell a while in imag- 
ination in our rural homes. As business men, with- 
out regard to politics, present or future, with the 
President of the United States here as the guest 
of honor, we can thank him for many things which 
he has done in the best interests of the country. 
Upon the tariff rests all our industries. Any dis- 
turbance of it is sure to lead to uncertainty and 
uncertainty ends in panics, and yet in the changing 
conditions of our industrial life, changes of the tariff 
are inevitable and must come. I have gone through 
one struggle in the Senate in tariff framing or tariff 
measure, and know that it is not a scientific revi- 
sion of schedules but a game of chance and gov- 
erned largely by the ability and the power of the 
various interests of the country. We can thank the 
rresident that in spite of the opposition of high 
protectionists and of free traders he has secured a 
Tariff Board of experts; that he has appointed such 
a board without regard to political associations or 
affiliations, and that now in the revision of the 
tariff we can have the recommendations of this 
expert commission upon different schedules as the 
question arises instead of a general disturbance of 
the whole business of the country upon every item 
of manufacture and production. As business men 
we are interested in finance and currency. We 
know that millions are locked up in secret places in 
the homes of the people because they fear the 

[164] 



THE SOCIETY OF THE GENESEE 

banks, and there that currency becomes the prey 
of robbers and of fires. We know also that foreign- 
ers working here and not understanding our insti- 
tutions transmit many more millions of currency 
a year to their homes. We can thank President 
Taft that by unremitting effort and against the ob- 
jections of localities that want every dollar kept 
where it was produced he has secured the Postal 
Savings Banks, which will not only aid the people, 
but keep at the service of the government millions, 
mounting higher every year, which before were 
never available. 

We have had upon the statute book for twenty 
years the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. It has received 
various interpretations. The lawyers could not 
agree upon it and business men were in doubt as 
to whether they were violating the law or living 
up to its requirements. With the ability of a great 
lawyer, with the calmness of a great judge, with 
the courage of a great executive, the President has 
forced through the courts to an ultimate decision 
from our highest tribunal an interpretation of the 
Sherman Anti-Trust law, which is practicable and 
sensible. Now business knows what it can do and 
what it cannot do, and business does not care so 
much what it is prevented from doing or what it is 
permitted to do so long as it knows the law. We 
of all parties can thank the President, also that in 
no respect has he shown so much that he is the 
President of the whole people as in the selections 
which he has made for that highest tribunal upon 
which depends more than in any other department 
of our government the strength and stability of our 
institutions and the prosperity of the country. I 
mean the Supreme Court. He has had the courage, 

[165] 



ON" THE THRESHOLD OP EIGHTY 

because he was best fitted for the place, to make a 
Democrat and a Confederate soldier Chief Justice. 
He has had the courage and open-mindedness to 
place both Democrats and Republicans upon that 
bench, governed only by their qualifications and 
their ability to fill this great place. 



[166] 



Speech at the Celebration of the Treaty of Alli- 
ance between France and the United States, 
made February 6, 1778, being the First Treaty 
ever made by the United States. Cafe Martin, 
New York City, February 6, 1912. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: 

It is characteristic of the dramatic gift peculiarly 
possessed by the French that you should gather 
here to-night to bridge the interval of one hundred 
and thirty-four years between 1778 and 1912. The 
interval comprises the best history of the world. 
It has contributed more to civil and religious lib- 
erty, to the elevation of peoples, to popular sov- 
ereignty, to advancement in the arts and sciences 
by invention and discovery, than all the preceding 
ages of recorded time. 

For our purpose to-night, and I think legiti- 
mately for conclusions anywhere, the inception of 
this marvelous age can be traced to 1778. We touch 
the button, and the cinematograph begins to de- 
velop the figures of the immortals. There pass in 
review Washington and Lafayette, Rochambeau 
and General Greene, de Grasse and John Paul 
Jones, while standing beyond are the French For- 
eign Minister de Vergennes and Benjamin Frank- 
lin preparing the treaty which made possible the 
independence of the American Colonies and the cre- 
ation of the Republic of the United States. We 
turn from the films of the cinematograph to the 
pages of history. All Europe at that time was gov- 
erned by the principle of absolutism in the throne. 

[167] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

While in the American Colonies the struggle for 
two years had been characterized by a succession of 
defeats for the patriots, the loss of the Atlantic 
seaboard, with New York and Philadelphia; the 
flight of the Continental Congress to sit first in 
one village and then another; the credit of the 
young nation hopelessly impaired, its currency 
worthless, its treasury empty, its munitions of war 
almost exhausted and the army under Washington 
encamped at Valley Forge, the blood-stained tracks 
of the feet of the shoeless soldiers upon the snow 
illustrating the desperate state of affairs. While the 
victory at Saratoga the year before had helped us 
with many continental nations and had greatly 
encouraged our people, yet without assistance from 
abroad the revolution was practically ended. The 
story of nations as well as of individuals demon- 
strates that God in his infinite wisdom tries men by 
fire before trusting them with power. The trial had 
demonstrated the stuff of which our forefathers 
were made and showed that capacity for sacrifice 
without which there can be neither manhood nor 
patriotism. Said Lord North to Benjamin Frank- 
lin, our commissioner at that time in London, 
"How can so wise a man as you advise your 
countrymen to engage in this hopeless revolution 
when we have the power to burn down all your 
towns and destroy your industries?" Franklin 
answered, "My Lord, all I possess in the world is 
in houses in those towns. You can set fire to them 
and burn them to the ground to-morrow, and you 
will only strengthen my determination to advise 
my countrymen to fight if you continue in your 
present policy." That was the spirit which reached 
France and brought about the famous treaty of 
February, 1778. The effect of that treaty was 

[168] 



TEEATY OF ALLIANCE SPEECH 

extraordinary. The English Cabinet heard of it 
and immediately sent proposals of the most liberal 
kind to Governor Tryon of New York to be pre- 
sented to the Continental Congress. The Gover- 
nor sent them to General Washington with a re- 
quest that they be presented to Congress and also 
placed in the hands of every soldier in the army. 
That was so transparent an effort to sap the patriot- 
ism of the Continental troops by the prospect of 
peace that Washington, confident on his side, wrote 
back to the Governor, "Every soldier has a copy 
of your proposition and Congress is considering it." 
Congress said to Washington, "What do you ad- 
vise?" Washington's answer was characteristic: 
"No negotiations and no communications until the 
army and the fleet are withdrawn and our indepen- 
dence recognized." The treaty with France arrived 
and was immediately ratified by the Continental 
Congress. The French under Count de Grasse ap- 
peared in our waters and the French army, under 
Rochambeau, was soon afoot on our land. Muni- 
tions of war were furnished and a credit supplied 
by France which brought the revolution to a suc- 
cessful close two years afterward. 

Just now there is a wide spirit of agitation, fo- 
mented by flaming oratory, against leaders and 
organization. We are told that progress has been 
impeded, delayed and at times paralyzed by reliance 
at different periods upon so-called great men. 
There is nothing new under the sun. It is only 
another picture, suited to another period, by a 
twist of the kaleidoscope with the same old glass 
inside. We had in this very year, 1778, an experi- 
ment. It is known in history as the "Conway 
Cabal." It had its origin in hatred of the demon- 
strated superiority in every element of leadership 

[169] 



ON" THE THRESHOLD OP EIGHTY 

of General Washington. It proposed to subject 
him to the referendum and recall. Its purpose was 
to put in his place General Gates and a staff com- 
posed of malcontents. Gates, as was proven when 
subjected to trial, was a monumental egotist of 
showy but not substantial ability. The battle of 
Saratoga, which gave him his fame, had been won 
by the careful preparations of General Schuyler 
(who was removed by the machinations of Gates) 
and by the desperate bravery of Benedict Arnold. 
If the conspiracy had succeeded, and the referen- 
dum and the recall had removed Washington and 
put Gates and Conway and Lee in supreme charge, 
we would not be here to-night. But, happily, it 
failed, and the whole world now recognizes that 
there was one supreme leader who could have car- 
ried us safely through the revolution, and that was 
George Washington. 

Our country has reached its present position of 
peace, power and happiness because trained states- 
men have been deemed by our people to be better 
fitted to enact our laws with the deliberation, the 
study and experience which are the characteristics 
of representative government, than to have them 
made by the passion of the hour and the voice 
of the agitator willing to fire the Temple of Ephesus 
if it may lead to power and fame for himself. 

But how came France, absolutely ruled by aris- 
tocratic power, to give assistance at this critical 
hour to a revolt against kingly authority? Again 
comes to the mind the man of born leadership. 
This time it is the man of ideas. No man contrib- 
uted so much to the creation of government as it 
is to-day as Jean Jacques Rousseau, a genius with 
marvelous gifts. His teachings proved that no mat- 

[170] 



TREATY OF ALLIANCE SPEECH 

ter how wonderful the power or attractive the 
presentation of false ideas — 

"Truth crushed to earth shall rise again; 
The eternal years of God are hers ; 
While error, wounded, writhes with pain, 
And dies among its worshipers." 

Rousseau caught on to the questioning spirit of 
the age and presented atheism in more fascinating 
garb than ever before, but the resistless force of the 
truths of Christianity crushed his crusade. He 
brought all his powers to the propagation of the 
doctrine of free love and the lack of obligation in 
the marriage tie, but the eternal foundations of 
the family remained unchanged. He proclaimed the 
truth, then unknown and unrecognized, that gov- 
ernment can exist only by consent of the governed. 
This was the dynamite which had lain dormant for 
ages. It led to the French Revolution, until it 
worked its way to the creation of republican France 
of to-day. The court of Louis, tired of frivolity 
and wearied of gayety, turned to this idea of Rous- 
seau as a toy to give freshness to fagged intellects 
and interest to vapid conversation, but in many 
minds it found lodgment, even at the court, and 
sent Lafayette to the United States. But there was 
another figure whose presence, whose equipment, 
whose marvelous sense, helped beyond description 
Rousseau's idea at the court, and that was Benja- 
min Franklin. Printer, writer, statesman, Quaker, 
he is the most picturesque character of this period 
of revolution. The principle of non-resistance 
which lies at the foundation of the faith of the 
Quaker is often the most dangerous weapon of of- 
fense and defense. When Franklin, representing 
the colonies in London, was summoned before the 

[171] 



ON" THE THRESHOLD OP EIGHTY 

Privy Council, Lord Widdeburne assailed him with 
abuse, ribaldry, and insult, which was received by 
the peers in the Privy Council with loud shouts of 
laughter and approval. Franklin, who had been 
doing wonderful service in the effort to reconcile 
the difference between the mother country and the 
colonies, and had met every rebuff with explanation 
of the conditions existing in America, which turned 
out afterward to be true, felt that he had this time 
been pressed beyond endurance. Instead of fight- 
ing or giving insult for insult he simply remarked 
that he had just bought a court suit, but he had 
never put it on and he would never wear it until 
he felt assured of the absolute independence of the 
colonies. He went home and did more than any 
other man to bring the colonies together to act in 
unison for the creation of an independent govern- 
ment. He laid the suit away in camphor, but ten 
years afterward, when he had won the support of 
France, he wore it at the French court in celebration 
of the treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, 
which had just been signed and which assured the 
independence of the colonies. 

Franklin was welcomed by the philosophers, then 
popular at court, because he was the discoverer of 
electricity and had brought lightning from the 
clouds. He was welcomed by the ladies of the court 
because, though seventy years of age, he was himself 
a dynamo of resistless attraction. The young wits 
made fun of him ; the young litterateurs caricatured 
him; the fops made him the butt of their sallies at 
the suppers and over the wine, but found to their 
amazement that this man of three score and ten in 
the tournament of love had unhorsed them all, and 
all the women were anxious to receive from him 
the crown of love and beauty. Franklin, the 

[172] 



TREATY OF ALLIANCE SPEECH 

printer's apprentice, found his reward and fame in 
his own time and, illustrating the dynamic power 
and resistless force of the idea which we are con- 
sidering, Bunyan, the tinker, after more than a 
century, goes from Bedford Jail to Westminster 
Abbey. 

Now, I said there was nothing new under the 
sun. The Continental Congress were so elated by 
the treaty and the arrival of the French forces by 
land and sea that they turned aside from the war 
measures which had been their sole occupation to 
send a message to the Legislatures of the several 
States, on October 12, 1778, advising them to take 
measures for the suppression of theatrical entertain- 
ments, horse racing, gaming and such other di- 
versions as were producing dissipation and general 
depravity of principles and morals. It is needless 
to say none of the Legislatures acted upon this 
advice. General Washington, after he retired from 
the Presidency, left Mount Vernon to attend a 
horse race at Philadelphia at which he had entered 
one of his blooded steeds. Theatrical entertain- 
ments are now more popular than ever, but gam- 
bling has been placed under the ban of the law, and, 
in our State, horse racing was abolished two years 
ago. 

Another illustration: The movement for the 
emancipation of women, beginning in laws affecting 
their separate property in 1848, has continued until 
now, there is a wide and almost successful effort to 
grant them equal rights with men in the suffrage, 
in office holding, in jury duty, and in Germany this 
year in militarism, and in every duty of the citizen. 
It was in this pregnant twelve months which consti- 
tute 1778 that at the Battle of Monmouth Molly 
Pitcher was carrying water to her husband, who 

[173] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

was a gunner of a battery of one piece of artillery. 
He was killed and the lieutenant proposed to re- 
move the piece out of danger, when Molly said, 
"I can do everything that my husband could," and 
she performed her husband's duties with that old 
gun better than he could have done. The next 
morning she was taken before General Washington, 
her wonderful act was reported and its influence 
upon the fate of the battle, which was a victory, 
and Washington made her at once a sergeant in the 
army to stand on the rolls in that rank as long as 
she lived. 

Eloquence has been exhausted and poetry has 
received its finest inspiration in portraying the 
heroism of Latour d'Auvergne, the first grenadier 
of France, who fell on his one hundredth battlefield, 
having won as a private soldier the title of the 
bravest of the brave. He won more — a decree that 
forever at the roll call his name should be called and 
a sergeant should step forward and say, "Dead upon 
the field of honor." 

It seems appropriate now for us to place among 
the immortals and in the Hall of Fame this only 
woman sergeant of the United States Army who 
won her title fighting for her country upon the field 
of battle and who is the evangel of woman's rights 
and woman's enfranchisement. 

Our celebration of this treaty here to-night, with 
the presence of the distinguished Ambassador of 
France, has its charm and significance. But the 
first celebration of the treaty was more dramatic 
and more significant. Every American schoolboy 
knows the story of the horrors of that winter of 
famine and of cold at Valley Forge. The spring 
and summer make of that beautiful valley a Para- 
dise on earth. The treaty was ratified on the second 

[174] 



TREATY OF ALLIANCE SPEECH 

of May by the Congress, and on the sixth it was 
celebrated at Valley Forge by the Continental Army 
with a grand banquet, the army having come out of 
the winter of despair into the bright sunshine not 
only of hope, but of certainty through the friendship 
of France. The feasts in those days began at twelve 
or three o'clock, and that for a century afterward 
was the dinner hour in the United States in the best 
circles. There were toasts and speeches. They 
could afford to waste ammunition in salute, because 
plenty was coming from France. At five o'clock 
Washington retired with his staff. The cheers fol- 
lowed him for a quarter of a mile and were fre- 
quently returned by the Commander-in-Chief and 
the officers wheeling about and responding with 
cheers. The words shouted by the army and the 
toasts of that day have, happily, been preserved. 
The first toast responded to with the wildest enthu- 
siasm was "Long live the King of France," "Long 
live friendly European powers," "Huzza! for the 
American States," and then, the whole army rising, 
"Long live General Washington!" 

There is a growing feeling in our country against 
the continuance of ambassadors and ministers 
abroad. It is alleged that with the cable all critical 
matters are discussed and settled between the 
foreign ministers of the several countries without 
the intervention of our representatives. I do not 
think that ambassadors will ever be abolished. The 
impersonal can never take the place of the personal. 
Everything in the end comes back to the man and 
his fitness for the particular duty which he has as- 
signed to him. The ambassador is the representa- 
tive not only of his government but of his people. 
He has the power, and if he possesses the ability, he 
promotes as the cold type of the formal message 

[175] 



CW THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

never could, friendship and good fellowship between 
the people of his country and the people of the 
country to which he is accredited. The ambassador 
generally represents his period in his own land. In 
Washington's time France sent here Citizen Genet; 
in our day, Ambassador Jusserand. Citizen Genet 
represented the spirit of the terror in the French 
Revolution. He proceeded to stir up the country 
by speeches at banquets and town meetings in favor 
of an alliance with France against Great Britain in 
the long journey that he made before he arrived 
at Philadelphia and presented his credentials. He 
demanded of Washington an alliance, offensive and 
defensive, and a declaration of war against Great 
Britain. Washington saw that such an act at that 
time, with France fully engaged in a battle with all 
Europe, would only lead to forces coming over from 
Canada and ships entering our ports when our 
young Republic had no money, very little credit and 
had been exhausted by the Revolutionary War. 
But the memory of the friendship of France stirred 
up popular enthusiasm for Citizen Genet's propo- 
sition. When he found Washington could not be 
moved, he tried a referendum to the American 
people and a recall. If at that time these two propo- 
sitions had been in existence there is no doubt but 
what by an enormous majority war would have 
been declared against England, an alliance would 
have been made with the leaders of the French 
Revolution and Washington would have been re- 
called from the presidency, and the most violent 
men placed in the presidential chair. However, the 
referendum and recall had not then materialized 
into laws and Washington summarily dismissed the 
minister by demanding his immediate recall. With- 
in six months the whole country, with greater 

[176] 



TREATY OF ALLIANCE SPEECH 

unanimity even, had recovered from the craze which 
Citizen Genet had created and stood solidly behind 
the policy of General Washington. 

A century and a quarter have passed and the 
French Republic has here again a citizen who repre- 
sents the genius of the institutions of his country, 
the aspirations of his people and their sentiments 
toward us. He carries his mission to the President. 
If he succeeds both nations rejoice. If he fails, he 
has not attempted to recall by a referendum either 
Roosevelt or Taft. But his failures are only delays. 
In the end he always wins. Writing histories in 
English which become classics of our literature, and 
speaking in our tongue, with the eloquence, aptness 
and finish which make his addresses a model for the 
American student, Ambassador Jusserand is that 
happy combination which is the supremest result 
of gifted diplomacy — an American in America and 
yet always a Frenchman. 

A living memorial of President Taft's administra- 
tion will be the arbitration treaties he so happily 
conceived. For their acceptance the President has 
had no more efficient co-worker than the French 
Ambassador. 

Gentlemen, may it be the good fortune of France 
and the United States to always have at Washing- 
ton such an Ambassador. May this celebration 
inaugurated here to-night be followed by the pas- 
sage by the Senate of the treaty of perpetual arbi- 
tration with France, and may this day find happy 
expression in public celebrations for all the future 
both in France and the United States. 



[177] 



(Stenographically Reported) 

Speech at the Twenty-sixth Annual Lincoln Din- 
ner of the Republican Club of the City of 
New York, in Commemoration of the Birth 
of Abraham Lincoln, at the Waldorf-Astoria, 
February 12, 1912. 

Mr. Bannard, President of the Club: 

About four hours ago I was informed that both 
General Wood and Colonel Goethals had been de- 
tained in Washington by the Committee of Military 
Affairs, and could not possibly be with us. You 
can imagine what I did. I rang up a certain gentle* 
man than whom no one is better known in the 
United States, and told him that our mortality of 
speakers was forty per cent. I threw myself on his 
neck, so far as the telephone would permit (laugh- 
ter), and when he said he would consider it, I could 
have hugged him, if the telephone had indulged me. 
I shall be his friend for life, and I want to intro- 
duce the best speaker in the world, and I will give 
you just one guess as to who it is. Senator Depew. 
(Great cheers and applause.) 

Mr. Depew: 

Mr. President: 

For a man who congratulated himself that he 
was going to attend a dinner and hear the President 
and great orators, that he had no responsibilities, 
that he should enjoy what was offered, both in the 

[178] 



LINCOLN BIETHDAT SPEECH 

solid and fluid without stint, when he is sitting 
preliminary to that, alongside of his wife as she is 
taking her tea at six o'clock, to receive a telephone 
message like the one which has just been reported 
by our presiding officer to speak within an hour in 
the place of two of the most distinguished men in 
the country, is enough to disturb a nervous man. 
(Laughter.) 

General Garfield once said to me, "You cannot 
take too many chances without hurting your reputa- 
tion." (Laughter.) "No man who has made a 
reputation should attempt to speak unless he has 
been notified long before and had ample opportu- 
nity for preparation, and some day, if you keep this 
up, you will make a speech, on a short call, and the 
failure of it will be so phenomenal that it will end 
the reputation of a lifetime." (Laughter.) Re- 
membering that, last summer I called a classmate of 
mine, and he compiled eight volumes of my 
speeches, and so I can say, as did Daniel Webster, or 
somebody else — I don't remember who — "The past, 
at least, is secure." (Great laughter and applause.) 

When a man speaks extemporaneously, he is apt 
to be apologizing for it for some time afterwards. 
There have been distinguished examples of that in 
our recent history. (Laughter.) I remember the 
charming lady who was doing the best she could, 
distributing tracts before she got on the platform 
to speak, and in handing one to a cabby, he said to 
her, "Excuse me, Miss, I am happily married, and 
I don't believe in divorce"; and the tract was "Abide 
with me." (Great laughter.) 

I was pleased with the speech of our President, 
Mr. Bannard, in which, after complimenting every- 
body who came here to this entertainment, he said 
that "without the inspiration of the woman, where 

[179] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

would we be?" Look at him, look at him, at his 
time of life, and he is not married yet! (Laughter 
and applause.) 

Now, an occasion like this necessarily leads to a 
comparison between the past and the present. The 
first speech I ever heard Mr. Lincoln make, was the 
one that he did not make. It was at Peekskill. 
(Laughter.) The whole population had gathered 
for the ten minutes in which he was to address 
us on his way to Washington. The local celebrity, 
who had been in Congress with him, represented the 
people for the welcoming speech, and before the 
welcoming speech was concluded, the train moved 
off with Mr. Lincoln laughing. 

In 1864, there devolved upon me, as Secretary 
of State, the duty of collecting soldiers' votes, be- 
cause the Legislature was Republican, and the Gov- 
ernor, Horatio Seymour, was a Democrat, and so 
they didn't give it to the Governor. I stayed three 
months in Washington, and Stanton, Secretary of 
War, refused to give me the information necessary 
to reach the New York soldiers in the field with 
ballots. New York had over 300,000 soldiers scat- 
tered over the South. In great rage, after being 
roughly turned down by Stanton, I was going out 
of the War Office one afternoon, when I met Elihu 
B. Washburn, who at that time was the special 
representative and most intimate friend of Mr. 
Lincoln. I told him what was the matter, and he 
said, "What are you going to do?" I said, "I have 
got to clear my own skirts. I am going to New 
York to publish in the papers that the administra- 
tion will not give me the localities where the New 
York troops are, and so they cannot vote." He 
said, "Look here, Depew, that beats Lincoln." 
"Well," I said, "then give me the voters' addresses." 

[180] 



LINCOLN" BIKTHDAT SPEECH 

He said, "You don't know Abe. He is a great 
President, but he is also a great politician, and if 
there was no other way of getting those votes, he 
would go around with a carpet bag, and collect them 
himself." (Laughter.) Within an hour I was sum- 
moned into the presence of a changed Secretary of 
War, so polite that I didn't know him, and on the 
midnight train I went off with the locations of the 
troops. The cause of this quick transformation was 
the sudden appearance of the President in the War 
Office with a message so emphatic that the roaring 
lion became the most serviceable of lambs. 

There has been much criticism about a President 
working, while he is in office, for reelection, but here 
is the example, after fifty years, of the man whom 
we are celebrating here to-night, who would have 
gone around with a carpet bag to collect the votes if 
there was no other way of getting them. And I am 
sure our President, Mr. Taft, is justified in doing 
what he can in that line, as he did so magnificently 
in his speech here to-night. (Great applause.) It 
certainly is dramatic for one who has that recollec- 
tion of the year preceding the presidential election 
of Mr. Lincoln, to again, nearly fifty years after- 
wards, be in the hall with a President, the year 
before his reelection (great applause), with the con- 
ditions virtually unchanged. It reminds me that 
possibly nothing changes in this world. Certainly, 
in my long experience in public life, I have found 
that nothing changes in the fundamentals; the 
change is only in the scenery, the surroundings, and 
the dramatic effect. 

We celebrated in December, the landing of the 
Mayflower. Why? Because, in the cabin of the 
Mayflower, was enunciated that charter which first 
gave the principle of equality of all men before the 

[181] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

law. We celebrated here, this last week, the first 
treaty ever made by the United States, the treaty 
with France which gave to us Lafayette, Rocham- 
beau, and deGrasse, and the French army and the 
French navy, and the credit and munitions of war, 
which enabled us to win our independence. We 
celebrate to-night Mr. Lincoln and his administra- 
tion of fifty years ago, and we will celebrate, on the 
twenty-second of this month, Washington's Birth- 
day, with all that it means. Last summer I was in 
France, and I went out one Sunday to Versailles, 
where all Paris goes, and I accompanied the crowd 
as they walked through that marvelous palace of 
Louis XIV, and as they paused in the rooms, full of 
memories of Napoleon, the Empress Josephine, and 
Marie Antoinette, what struck me more than 
anything else, accustomed as I have been, all my 
life, to go to historic places in America where there 
was enthusiasm and reverence, was that those 
people went by as sightseers and tourists, because 
Versailles, with its memories of the Bourbon kings, 
and Napoleon, of an absolute autocracy, and an 
empire, conveyed nothing to them. Their memories 
were only of the thirty-odd years of the republic. 

But we are what we are to-day because of our 
traditions, and our traditions never change: the 
traditions of equality before the law enunciated in 
the cabin of the Mayflower, the traditions of the 
Declaration of Independence in Independence Hall, 
the traditions of Washington and what he stood for 
and what he accomplished, and to-night, the tradi- 
tions of what Lincoln stood for. We are here now 
as a Republican club, and Lincoln was a Republican 
President. All sides of him have been superbly pre- 
sented. The tribute which President Taft paid was 
finely said and deserved, that he was the President 

[182] 



LINCOLN BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

of all parties; and that beautiful tribute, so eloquent 
and appreciative, by the orator of the evening, as 
to Lincoln's characteristics, from a Southern man, 
was equally deserved. But Lincoln was a partisan, 
and a Republican. We are here to-night as parti- 
sans and Republicans, most of us. 

Lincoln stood for what? For the questions of his 
day. Have they changed? They have changed 
only in form. We have not the slave labor question 
any longer, but we have labor questions which are 
to be decided upon broad principles, as Lincoln 
would have decided them if they had arisen in his 
time. He had to provide revenue for the purpose 
of supporting the army and navy and carrying on 
the Government. He had to develop the resources 
of the country which would support the people here, 
if we won, and while we were fighting. Now, what 
did he do? He inaugurated and carried through the 
most drastic measure of protection of American in- 
dustries that any President ever suggested. It was 
full protection, not so high but that it furnished 
revenue, and yet high enough to cause the develop- 
ment of one industry after another, and to continue 
to the laboring man of this country that measure of 
wage which makes him more independent, and with 
greater possibilities and hopefulness than ever ex- 
isted before in any country in the world. 
(Applause.) 

We come down to our own time, and we have 
meeting us, and meeting President Taft, very much 
the same things that met Lincoln, so far as the 
fundamentals are concerned, or the principles upon 
which we fight. And I want to say, as a veteran 
campaigner, who has stumped this country for dif- 
ferent Presidents for fifty-six years (applause), that 
the speech of forty minutes made here to-night by 

[183] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OP EIGHTY 

President Taft will be the text-book of the cam- 
paign. We will all copy from it, we will all take 
texts from it, and we will make the welkin ring all 
over the country with the achievements of the Taft 
Administration which it merits and the promises it 
contains, and if it results, as it ought to, in his 
election next November, we will say, "Taft, you 
did it!" (Great cheers and applause, and cries of 
"Hear, hear!") 

I was reading to-night in an English paper the 
speech made by Shuster in London (applause), and 
it was a renewal of faith in the great principles for 
which Lincoln stood, for which Washington stood, 
and for which every statesman in America who is 
successful must stand. He says, in effect, "I went 
to Persia, commissioned to put her finances in 
order. I found universal corruption. I found the 
money was ample, but it was all diverted to the 
personal use of grafters, from royalty down. I said 
to the first constituent assembly, elected by the 
people, that Persia ever had in all her history, from 
the time of Cyrus the Great, "Will you give me 
power to do as I have a mind to? And they said 
'Yes' unanimously. I found there was money 
enough for all purposes, and I began to collect it, 
and to apply it to the legitimate purposes of the 
resurrection of Persia, so that she could stand upon 
her liberal principles, and go ahead, when Russia 
suddenly said, 'That is not what you are here for; 
what we want is demoralization and bankruptcy, 
because that is our opportunity to seize Persia.' ' 

Well, my friends, contrast that with the principles 
that have been at the bottom of American policies 
in treating with other countries. Contrast it with 
our treatment of the Philippines, of Cuba, of 

[184] 



LINCOLN BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

Hawaii, contrast it with what we did when one of 
the greatest of our secretaries of state, our own club 
member, Elihu Root, made his famous visit, as 
Secretary of State, to the Southern Republics. (Ap- 
plause.) 

Somebody says — I don't know who; Governor 
Black, with his marvelous memory will recall it — 
that there will never be anything but war tumult 
and revolution south of the Gulf of Mexico, but the 
policy of the American Government, under Roose- 
velt, and under Taft, is giving to those American 
republics on the Isthmus and in South America, 
greater stability than ever before, because we stand 
behind them and say, "We don't want your terri- 
tory, we don't want an inch of your land, we don't 
want any influence with you except to protect you 
under the Monroe Doctrine, but what we do de- 
mand is that you shall work out your own salvation 
on the eternal principles of our Declaration of Inde- 
pendence and of the charter of equal laws of the 
Mayflower and due regard for your international 
obligations." (Applause.) And that is dollar 
diplomacy ! 

Lincoln was President fifty years ago; Taft is 
President to-night. Lincoln was a candidate for 
reelection fifty years ago; Taft to-night is a candi- 
date for reelection. What is the difference between 
the two men? Mr. Taft is the product of the school 
and the college. He is the product of the best 
culture America can give. He is the product of the 
training which has given him that judicial mind 
which has enabled him to decide more questions 
than almost any other President in my time, and 
decide them right; which has enabled him to pre- 
sent more constructive and progressive legislation, 
and secure it, than most Presidents, and yet, as a 

[185] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

scholar and a judge, he lacks the faculty of adver- 
tisement and a brass band. (Laughter and ap- 
plause.) If he had those two qualities, he would be 
resistless. Every dead wall in the country, and 
every farmer's fence, and every home, would be 
filled with pictures and flaming eloquence which 
would indicate that the salvation of every man, 
woman and child, had been secured, built up and 
riveted, and with another term would be fenced in 
and whitewashed over head, and nothing more 
could be done by any human being. (Laughter.) 

We come to Lincoln. He was a different man. 
No one in any country ever started life so unprom- 
isingly as Abraham Lincoln. Nothing equals the 
poverty and hopelessness of a poor white cabin in 
the South, and especially at that time. And yet he 
came out of that, for there was in him the wonder- 
ful genius which nobody can account for. You can't 
account for Milton or Shakespeare. You can't ac- 
count for Lincoln. The first books he got hold of, 
he read over and over. First was the Bible, next 
"Pilgrim's Progress," and next "iEsop's Fables," 
and next Weem's "Life of Washington." Those 
made him a story teller, because Weem's "Life of 
Washington" has probably within its pages more 
stories that never happened to Washington, than 
any book ever written. (Laughter.) In Weem's 
"Life of Washington," you find the cherry tree 
story, and nowhere else. (Laughter.) And yet that 
lie has done infinite good to all the youths of the 
country (laughter), because it was a fundamental 
lie in the defense of the truth. "iEsop's Fables" 
furnished him with stories. I found out this about 
Lincoln, that he never argued anything. He simply 
told a story, or else cracked a joke, but it met the 
thing on all fours, so that if you were on the oppo- 

[186] 



LINCOLN" BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

site side, you had nothing to say. (Laughter.) My 
old friend, John Ganson, the ablest lawyer we had in 
Western New York, was a war Democrat, and he 
supported Mr. Lincoln. He was a fine looking, very 
dignified man, with a very impressive appearance 
and way of talking, and he had not a spear of hair 
on his head or anywhere about his face. He went 
up one day, he told me, to Mr. Lincoln, when things 
looked very bad at the front, and everybody was 
discouraged, and he said, "Mr. President, you know, 
sir, that I am a war Democrat. I am leaving my 
party to support your measures, because I believe in 
the country first and the party next. Now, things 
look very bad at the front, and I think, with this 
relation to you and your administration, I ought to 
know just how things are. How are they, sir?" Mr. 
Lincoln looked at him for a minute, and then said, 
in his quizzical way, "Ganson, how clean you 
shave!" (Great laughter.) There was a party of 
New York financiers who went down to Washing- 
ton, and the New York financier is a mighty able 
man — in Wall Street. But he sees the present, and 
he wants to provide for that. The financial situa- 
tion was frightful, because gold was so reduced in 
volume and at an unprecedented premium. They 
said: "Mr. President, we are here representing the 
financial interests in the financial center of the 
country, and we think that the best thing to do is to 
take the gold out of the treasury and give it to the 
people." But Mr. Lincoln knew that what little 
gold there was in the treasury was all the basis the 
country had for its credit, and the enormous volume 
of paper currency which had been put out. Did 
he argue that question with those financiers? No, 
he knew they would beat him out of sight in an 
argument, but he said to them : "Gentlemen, out in 

[187] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

Illinois, when I was practicing law, the farmers were 
troubled because of a disease among the hogs that 
was carrying them off and likely to destroy the 
whole of that industry. Someone suggested that the 
way to cure the hogs was to cut off their tails. So 
they cut them off, and they were cured. The next 
year the same disease came back, but they all died 
because they had no tails." (Great laughter and 
applause.) 

No man recovers from his environment and the 
influences of his birth, and the associations of his 
childhood, no matter how great may be his oppor- 
tunities afterwards, no matter how wonderful the 
culture that has come to him, nor how supreme his 
ability to take advantage of them. The environ- 
ment of his humble home will always cling to him, 
and always be in evidence. Lincoln passed the whole 
of that formative period of his life among a frontier 
people. He had singular and original experiences. 
He loved to be down at the country store, or the 
bar room of the village tavern, although he never 
drank, and there exchange stories and listen to 
stories among those adventurous and original people. 
That bar room was the neighborhood club in those 
days. He loved to go around the circuit, and when 
they reached the country towns, they all stopped 
at the same hotel, and they stayed up all night — 
the judge and the lawyers and the witnesses, and 
the grand and petit jury men — swapping these ex- 
periences. I asked him once, "Where do you get so 
many stories?" And he told me that it was in this 
way that I have just described. So he got into the 
habit, much to the disgust of Chase, who was a 
"turvy drop," and of other people around him, of 
meeting questions with these stories, most of which 
are not in print. (Laughter.) 

[188] 



LINCOLN BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

On the other side, there was another Lincoln 
formed on his daily reading of the Bible, which 
he knew by heart, and Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Prog- 
ress," which he knew by heart. The English 
language, in its noblest form as it is to-day, has 
been formed by the King James version of the Eng- 
lish Bible. It has been literature, pure and un- 
dented, which has given to our writers, in the 
English tongue, their distinction, and inspiration. 
That formed Lincoln's style. It also formed the 
basis from which he built up those principles of 
eternal truth which led to the Emancipation Proc- 
lamation, which led also to his infinite charity, 
which would have eradicated many evils had he 
lived to go through his second term. It was the 
education from this foundation which gave to the 
world those two imperishable productions, that 
oration which will live forever, the Gettysburg 
speech, and that finest State paper ever written by 
a President, and which never can be copied, Lincoln's 
second inaugural address. (Great applause.") 



[ 189 ] 



Speech at the Celebration by the New York State 
Society of the Cincinnati of the One Hundred 
and Eightieth Birthday of George Washington, 
at the Waldorf-Astoria, February 22, 1912. 

Comrades of the Cincinnati: 

It is eminently fitting that this Society should 
celebrate the birthday of its founder, General 
George Washington. One hundred and eighty years 
have passed since his birth. The story of that cen- 
tury and three-quarters, or at least the last century 
of it, is the most illuminating and inspiring cycle of 
recorded time. It is our pride and satisfaction as 
Americans that to marvelous development, uplift 
and progress of civil and religious liberty in this 
century no one contributed so much as George 
Washington. 

It is a happy result of the continuance of this 
patriotic order that there has been a revival of the 
study of the origin of our institutions, of the for- 
mation of the Republic and of the lives and charac- 
ters of the founders. 

There are many other patriotic societies celebrat- 
ing this day who have come into existence within 
the last half century, and who are doing admirable 
work in the education of the citizen by furnishing 
him with the inspirations of the past. In my close 
connection for many years with education, as Re- 
gent of the University of the State of New York 
for thirty years, and a member of the Corporation 
of Yale University for twelve years, I have been 
deeply interested in the work of the common schools, 
academies and colleges. I have found that one 

[190] 



WASHINGTON BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

great defect is in the inadequate attention given 
to American history. Many of the wild theories, 
which now attract the young and in the guise of 
reform seem to promise far better results than any 
which have been secured in the past, would never 
have taken such hold upon the imagination if there 
had been careful and systematic instruction in the 
history of our Republic and of the principles which 
lay at its foundation. I doubt if the majority in 
any high school or college of the country, if called 
upon on this day to pass an examination upon the 
life, character and achievements of General Wash- 
ington, or Hamilton, or Jefferson, or Madison, could 
succeed. I doubt if even a small minority know that 
in those early days and during the experimental 
stage, questions of Federal authority, State rights, 
checks to prevent hasty and ill-considered action, 
of independence of the courts, and of representative 
government, were all thrashed out. 

To-night fashionable society is having many balls 
and dances because this is a national holiday. Gen- 
eral Washington was exceedingly fond of dancing, 
and was noted as being the most expert and graceful 
dancer of his day, but he knew nothing of the "Tur- 
key Trot" or the "Bunny Hug" or the "Grizzly 
Bear." If these young people should be asked at 
the supper what is the significance of this day and 
what the place of General Washington in history, 
I doubt if they would be able to respond. They 
would return to the "Turkey Trot." 

A very brilliant and highly cultured and traveled 
young woman said to me, "Why bother about those 
old times and the great people of that day? What 
they did is of no interest to us, though undoubtedly 
it was important then. I have no use for the 
ancients." 

[191] 



OX THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

It is the distinction of the Society of the Cin- 
cinnati that it has lived with content and satisfac- 
tion for nearly two hundred years without being 
disturbed in its organization by the cataclysms 
which have occurred during that long period. 
Politics have never entered its councils, nor have 
religious factions or disputes disturbed its member- 
ship. It has lived through and survived every 
Presidency in our history. 

It has become the fashion now for men distin- 
guished in any department of life before they die 
to write their autobiographies or print their diaries. 
If the recorder of the Cincinnati had kept a close 
diary of the inner councils of each Presidential ad- 
ministration, beginning with Washington, and the 
troubles in their cabinets, it would be a wonderful 
contribution to the history of the times. As the 
past recedes and the men and events grow more dim, 
we need this personal revelation to show the su- 
preme authority exercised for the creation and 
afterward for the salvation of the young Republic 
until it was put upon a firm basis by George Wash- 
ington. The value of such a contribution is brought 
emphatically to our attention by the diary of Gideon 
Welles, who was a member of President Lincoln's 
Cabinet. It was my fortune to be officially in 
Washington during much of the Lincoln Admin- 
istration and to know of the gossip which filtered 
from the White House as to the motives and am- 
bitions of the President's official family. There are 
few now living who had the opportunity or who 
knew any of these events, but here from the pen 
of this hard-headed Yankee who had but one am- 
bition, and that was to serve his chief and save the 
country, comes a diary written day by day, show- 
ing the intrigues for power, for influence with the 

[192] 



WASHINGTON BIRTHDAY SPEECH 

President, for replacing him for their own am- 
bitions, for succession among the members of his 
cabinet. The great value of the revelation is that 
while these great men were most efficient in their 
several departments of the State and Foreign 
Affairs, or the Treasury and Finance, or War, or 
the Navy, or the Post Office, they were bitterly 
antagonistic to each other. But they were compelled 
to use their great abilities in their several ways for 
the government and its salvation. They were com- 
pelled to suppress and keep under cover their 
machinations and their conspiracies against each 
other and against their chief, and they presented a 
united front to the enemy on the one hand and the 
country on the other because of the tact, the di- 
plomacy, the genius and the magnetic power of 
Abraham Lincoln. 

We know that Washington, the soldier, was the 
only one of the generals of the time who could have 
carried on successfully the Revolutionary War, and 
so he was "The Father of his Country." We know 
that in the trials and experiments of bringing a con- 
federacy of independent governments into a federa- 
tion of sovereign states, and yet with supreme 
power in the Federal Government, no man and no 
combination of men had so much influence as 
General Washington. We know that in securing 
the ratification of the Constitution, framed by a 
convention of the several States, he used with won- 
derful effect the officers and soldiers of his army who 
were prominent citizens in their several States and 
who had taken the oath of the Society of the Cin- 
cinnati to preserve and perpetuate the Union. We 
know that during his eight years as President only 
his commanding influence and courage with the 
people, who knew that he was serving them and 

[193] 



OX THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

longing for the opportunity to retire to private life, 
prevented our young Republic becoming an ally of 
the French Revolution and involved in a war with 
all Europe when we had neither credit, nor money, 
nor arms. We all know that except for his com- 
manding influence the revolutions which were 
started in various States would have culminated 
into a dissolution of the Union. We all know that 
at the end of eight years, he and he alone, had so 
consolidated our institutions that they could be en- 
trusted safely to other hands because behind the 
politicians were the people, educated to the benefits 
of government, of the Constitution and the laws. 
Now, this could have been brought out much more 
clearly if there had been a Gideon Welles in the 
cabinet of General Washington. The two ablest 
men, the greatest rivals and bitterest enemies of 
that period, were members of his official family, 
Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Each 
represented antagonistic views of government. Each 
had tremendous following among the people, but 
they worked together and subordinated their views 
to the general good, and how they did it is left to 
the imagination. And yet it requires no diary of a 
member of that cabinet; it requires no stretch of 
the imagination to draw from the records of the 
times, meager as they are in this respect, the daily 
story of Washington and his official family. We 
can see towering above them all the great master 
builder, keeping each in his place and performing 
the work for which he was fitted beyond all other 
men in the country, and at the same time making it 
impossible for their individual jealousies and am- 
bitions to disturb the creative and consolidating 
work of their chief. 

Now, gentlemen, nothing more astonishes the 

[194] 



WASHINGTON BIKTHDAT SPEECH 

careful reader of history than the few men who have 
controlled the destinies of nations and of mankind. 
Julius Caesar came into power when wealth and 
corruption had so undermined the Republic and 
enervated its virility that its dissolution into its 
original elements with universal warfare was immi- 
nent. By the creation of imperial authority he kept 
together that empire for a thousand years. Out- 
side its boundaries travel was impossible; within 
its boundaries there was Roman law and protection 
on the highway. This made possible the dissemina- 
tion of Christianity through the whole Roman 
world, an event which would have been impossible 
under the old savage relations of contiguous nations, 
and this made possible modern Christendom. 

The French Revolution would have failed except 
for the genius of Napoleon. His aims were not 
republican, nor the dissemination of liberty, but 
in the name of liberty he overthrew thrones and 
spread liberal ideas and overturned nearly all au- 
tocracy and absolutism and despotism except his 
own. Waterloo ended him but placed no barrier to 
the progress of democracy. England, with a Par- 
liamentary government more quickly responsive to 
the people than any in the world, France a republic, 
all other European nations with a Parliament, and 
most of them a responsible ministry, Turkey and 
ancient Persia feeling the thrill of these ideas, are 
all the results of the work, genius, conquests and 
triumphs of Napoleon. So, for liberty, as we under- 
stand it, and as we enjoy it, the absolute sovereignty 
of the people, the equality of all men before the 
law, the freedom of opportunity for every child, 
all these are due to the character, courage, unselfish 
patriotism and genius of George Washington. 
Caesar was inspired by ambition, Napoleon by craze 

[ 19-5 ] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

for power — both utterly selfish. Washington's 
labors were for his country. In the purity of his 
motive he stands the foremost man of all the 
centuries. 

We have problems which seem to us full of peril, 
but they are not so difficult as those which he suc- 
cessfully solved. We are passing through an acute 
struggle, common not only to us, but to the whole 
world, between labor and capital. We have greater 
general prosperity, a higher standard of living and 
more universal conditions of comfort than have ever 
existed among any people, or our own people before, 
and yet there never was such a wide-spread spirit of 
unrest. We are entering upon a presidential election, 
and the different candidates are presenting to us 
their methods for solving these difficulties and 
allaying this unrest. In the meantime, business 
halts, enterprises are suspended and the movement 
of the mighty forces which give employment and 
opportunity is checked. Frequently I hear a cry 
of anger and despair. Gentlemen, so long as we 
can celebrate in proper spirit the birthday of Gen- 
eral Washington, so long as we can read and re-read 
his Farewell Address, so long as we can remember 
and cherish the memory of Abraham Lincoln, so 
long as we can repeat his Gettysburg speech and his 
second inaugural, there will come into the Presi- 
dency and into the Cabinet, and into Congress, and 
into the courts, the wisdom which has guided us 
marvelously in the past and will surely take care of 
us in the future. 



[196] 



Speech at the Dinner given by the United Swed- 
ish Societies and the John Ericsson Memorial 
Association, March 9, 1912, at the Park Ave- 
nue Hotel, New York City, in Celebration of 
the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Battle between 
Monitor and Merrimac. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: 

In an age of anniversaries and their celebration, 
yours is unique. It is a tribute to a genius so modest 
that the immortality due him for his invaluable 
invention has never been accorded. 

The latter part of the Nineteenth Century with 
us was full of centennials, commencing with that 
of the Declaration of Independence and, continuing 
through the various battles of the Revolution, they 
ended with the adoption of the Constitution, the 
inauguration of the first President and the forma- 
tion of the Supreme Court of the United States. 
We celebrate still with appropriate ceremonies the 
recurring birthdays of Washington and Lincoln. 
The educational value of these memorial ex- 
ercises cannot be overestimated. Each celebration 
is a university education completed in a single day 
— an education in the best history of one's country, 
and an inspiration for patriotism. The Bunker Hill 
Monument gave to the world the oration of Daniel 
Webster, which, appearing thereafter in the school 
books, did more to inform the youth of the United 
States of the virtues and achievements of their fore- 
fathers and of the principles underlying the insti- 

[197] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

tutions of their country than all the histories in 
existence. 

It is interesting to glance over the speeches in and 
out of Congress during the first fifty years after 
the formation of the Government. They show that 
the orator understood that he must appeal to lively 
recollections among his constituents of the great 
revolution with which they were all familiar. Dur- 
ing the subsequent fifty years commercialism and 
industrialism, attendant upon the marvelous prog- 
ress and development of the country, practically 
obliterated both memory and influence in regard to 
the story of the creation of our government, or of 
the soldiers and statesmen whose valor and wisdom 
made the struggle triumphant. 

In estimating the value of the reproduction of 
the events or the retelling of the story of heroes and 
statesmen, I think that the interest centers around 
the individual. Events are innumerable. The 
mind, with the ordinary pursuits, struggles, suc- 
cesses and failures of life, has no time to grasp 
them all, or to study the details necessary to under- 
stand the significance of the results. But the 
romance of the hero has a perpetual charm. If 
the boy and the girl are thoroughly familiar with 
George Washington, Daniel Webster and Abraham 
Lincoln they will grasp most that it is necessary 
to know in regard to the story of American inde- 
pendence and evolution, of crises and how they were 
overcome successfully, of American valor, of the 
Constitution and of representative government and 
the value for yesterday, to-day and forever of 
American liberty. 

To understand what this day signifies we must 
in imagination throw a picture upon the wall of 
conditions in the United States, and between the 

[198] 



THE BATTLE BETWEEN" MONITOB AND MEBBIMAC 

United States and the world, in 1862. Happily, 
in the fraternizing of the combatants, in their equal 
share in the benefits of this most beneficent of gov- 
ernments and equal power and responsibility in its 
administration, the bitterness of that period has 
passed away, the flame of its passionate resent- 
ment has died out and we can calmly, from either 
side, study the heroic picture of men of the same 
blood, differently trained and with different ideals, 
fighting and dying as only such men can, for what 
they deemed to be right. 

I remember that year as if it were yesterday. 
The Civil War had been a drawn battle between 
the North and the South, a free labor or a slave 
holding republic. Mr. Lincoln and his adminis- 
tration, had, in their efforts to save the Union, an 
interior line of eleven thousand miles to defend and 
a sea coast of three thousand miles to blockade. 
The United States Navy had at that time only 
forty effective men-of-war. The conspirators in the 
government, knowing that they were to bring about 
secession, had sent the best and strongest of these 
battleships to China and the coast of Africa and 
the Pacific Ocean. There were only eleven ships, 
carrying only one hundred and thirty-one guns, 
upon our Atlantic coast. Less than a year before 
the appearance of the Monitor, an American 
naval officer had taken off the British steamship 
Trent Mason and Slidell and their secretaries who 
were going to Europe as ambassadors of the South- 
ern Confederacy, one to England and the other to 
France, to endeavor to secure recognition for their 
government. This had brought us to the verge of 
war with Great Britain, which was only averted 
by the diplomacy, skill and adroitness of Secretary 
of State William H. Seward. The sympathies of 

[199] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

the governments of the Old World were wholly 
with the government of the Southern Confederacy. 
All these governments were either absolute mon- 
archies or constitutional ones under the control of 
an aristocratic oligarchy. Tremendous immigra- 
tion to the United States had carried back such 
ideas of American liberty as were endangering 
thrones and old institutions. If this Civil War 
should be successful that danger would be averted 
for a generation, so the ruling classes in all Europe 
were anxious for any excuse to interfere and to 
break up the American Republic. On the other 
hand, a notion had got abroad that the slave- 
holders of the South were a privileged and aristo- 
cratic class, while the North was a nation of shop- 
keepers. So the sympathies of the hereditary rulers 
were with what they deemed to be a part of the 
country whose governing people were more nearly 
affiliated with themselves. If the Southern Con- 
federacy could be recognized by the great powers 
of Europe and arms and munitions of war poured 
in through the many harbors of the Atlantic coast, 
even the superior population, the greater wealth 
and the larger resources of the North could scarcely 
have been sufficient to save the Union. 

In the summer of 1861 the President, Congress 
and the country were informed that at the Norfolk 
Navy Yard, which had fallen into Confederate 
hands, a new and most formidable ship of war was 
being constructed on original lines. Some of the 
ablest officers of the American Navy had gone with 
their States into the rebellion. They had taken 
the old frigate Merrimac which was at Norfolk 
when it was seized, and with wonderful skill and 
ingenuity were transforming her into an ironclad 
impenetrable to any ordnance then in existence. 

[200] 



THE BATTLE BETWEEN M ON I TOE AND MEBEIMAC 

The whole North was greatly alarmed. It was fully 
thought that if the reports in regard to this for- 
midable vessel were true she could destroy the 
eleven ships of the American fleet, and, as our 
harbors were then wholly unprotected against such 
a battleship, could enter and levy tribute upon 
Philadelphia, New York and Boston. Delegations 
of bankers and commercial men were constantly 
going to Washington beseeching the President to 
save them from this peril. I recall Mr. Lincoln 
telling me in his whimsical way of the arrival of 
such a committee. They were from New York. 
There were a hundred of them. He said that all 
had Prince Albert coats and top hats. Their sev- 
eral spokesmen detailed the enormous amount of 
wealth which they represented and the millions 
which each of them individually possessed. They 
pictured how this warship could sail unimpeded to 
their docks and burn the entire city or else levy 
tribute sufficient to carry the war on indefinitely. 
They claimed that they were entitled to protection 
because of the liberality with which they had sub- 
scribed to the government bonds. Mr. Lincoln 
said that he had never heard or dreamed of so much 
money being owned or represented by so few people. 
He said to them, "Gentlemen, we have no ships 
to send to New York; we have no guns to mount 
on your forts; we have no money, and the whole 
credit and means of the government are exhausted 
in doing what we can to protect the Capital and this 
tremendous interior and coast line. But," he said, 
"if I had as much money as you say you have," and 
then in his quaint way of pronouncing, "and was 
as 'skeered' as you are, I think I would find means 
with which to protect my own town." Then this 
delegation went to Congress, and Congress appro- 

[201] 



ON THE THEESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

priated one million five hundred thousand dollars 
to invite proposals for the construction of any kind 
of a ship which would be able to meet and resist 
the attack of the Merrimac as had been described. 
Of course, the President was immediately flooded 
with plans from every cracked-brained inventor in 
the country, and the Navy Department was kept 
nights, days and Sundays in the investigation of 
these schemes. Fortunately, Captain John Ericsson 
had a reputation of previous achievement. He had 
been the inventor of the screw propeller which 
had revolutionized the commerce of the world and 
the battleships of all nations. He finally secured a 
contract for his device, in which the experts had no 
faith, and a small part of this appropriation and 
commenced work at Green Point, Long Island. He 
completed his little Monitor in one hundred days, 
and then, with Lieutenant Worclen and a crew, this 
nondescript craft, which was practically a raft with 
a revolving turret, armed with two eleven-inch 
guns, started for Hampton Roads. The country 
knew nothing of the ship, and the few who did had 
no faith in her, but regarded the experiment as only 
a desperate chance. On the 8th of March, 1862, 
the dread moment arrived when the Merrimac 
sailed out into Chesapeake Bay. She immediately 
attacked the two American frigates which were 
there to watch her, the Cumberland and the Con- 
gress. She sunk the Cumberland and drove the 
Congress ashore, and then returned to Norfolk to 
come out the next day and complete her work. 
Such a night and such a morning this country has 
seldom seen. There was little sleep anywhere; in 
the South wild elation, and in the North a frenzy 
of despair. The news, flashed by electric wires, 
filled the journals everywhere. There was but one 

[202] 



THE BATTLE BETWEEN" MONITOR ANT) MEBBIMAC 

ray of light, and that was a light of which to be 
proud. The Cumberland, refusing to surrender, 
had gone down in fifty-four feet of water, her flag 
still flying, her commander preferring that it should 
be buried with himself in the ocean rather than sur- 
render to the enemy. The morning of the 9th of 
March found the country in a thrill of expectancy, 
of hope on one side and of alarm on the other. In 
the early morning the Monitor had come into the 
bay. As the Merrimac started for the third ship, 
the Minnesota, this nondescript craft came out 
from under the shadow of the huge side of the Min- 
nesota and made directly for the Merrimac. The 
veterans on both sides looked at her in amazement, 
the skilled and trained officers of the Merrimac 
bursting with laughter. Some shouted, "Here 
comes a Yankee tin can on a shingle," and others, 
"Here's a Yankee cheesebox on a raft," but the re- 
volving cheesebox began to hurl from its eleven- 
inch guns solid shot against the armor of the Mer- 
rimac which broke the iron, though it could not 
pierce the twenty-four inches of solid oak under- 
neath, while the raft and the cheesebox proved in- 
vulnerable to the Merrimac guns. After several 
hours of this fighting, in which the Merrimac could 
not with her huge bulk ram her agile and small 
antagonist, in which she had suffered injuries that 
needed investigation, the Merrimac withdrew up 
the river to the Norfolk Navy Yard and never came 
out again. Again language is inadequate to describe 
the wild excitement in every city, village and hamlet 
in the land which followed this most dramatic and 
spectacular fight. 

The possibilities of the great nations of Europe 
recognizing the Southern Confederacy were over, 
the danger to the American Navy was past, the 

[203] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

hope of a Confederate Navy was blasted, but an 
event occurred that day which challenged the cab- 
inets, the navy departments and the admiralties 
of every nation in the world. They all saw that their 
fleets were doomed; they all saw that to preserve 
their positions on the ocean or protection for their 
coasts, there must be such a feverish haste, as never 
was known before, to burn, to bury or break up 
their wooden ships and secure ironclads. 

There is no study more interesting than the one 
which would develop how much property has been 
suddenly destroyed by invention or discovery or 
the opening of new channels to trade. Quite as 
large fortunes as have ever been piled up by the 
possessors of new and remunerative ideas, have 
on the other hand been lost because the revolu- 
tionary character of these ideas has sent the old 
ships or coaches or machinery to the scrap heap. 
One of the greatest fortunes in the world is due 
to the sagacity and courage of its maker who would 
sell at any price or break up and destroy the ma- 
chinery which he had installed at enormous expense 
yesterday if a better one came on the market 
to-day. 

The Monitor could make six knots an hour; the 
dreadnought makes twenty-one. The Monitor had 
a displacement of seven hundred and seventy-six 
tons; the dreadnought twenty-five thousand tons. 
The Monitor took its chance of hitting its target 
as it came in sight of its revolving turret, but even 
then it was obscured by clouds of black smoke, and 
the range of its guns was a few hundred yards. Its 
shot weighed only one hundred and sixty pounds, 
while the dreadnought with entire accuracy, even 
in a heavy sea, will send a shot or a shell weighing 
nine hundred pounds for six miles, with a possible 

[204] 



THE BATTLE BETWEEN" MONITOE AND MEEEIMAC 

range of ten. The resisting power of the soft iron 
which protected the Merrimac and the Monitor 
alike differed as much from the Harveyized steel 
armor of the dreadnought as one inch is to fifty, 
while the energy of the projectile from the great 
gun of the dreadnought is fifty thousand times 
greater than that which went from the muzzle of 
the gun in the Monitor. 

Ericsson said, as his little craft was launched, "I 
name you the Monitor." His thought went back 
to his school days when the monitor checked the 
bad boy or told the teacher. "I call you the Moni- 
tor," he said, "because you will admonish the 
leaders of the Southern rebellion that the batteries 
on the banks of their rivers can no longer present 
barriers to the entrance of the Union forces. I 
call you the Monitor as a warning to Great Britain 
to stop at once the building of the three battleships 
now under construction which are to cost three mil- 
lion five hundred thousand dollars apiece. I call 
you the Monitor because you are to warn all nations 
that they must abandon their navies and build 
new ones on your suggestion." 

Before Ericsson's invention of the screw propel- 
ler, the paddle wheels on either side of the ship 
were thought to be the greatest progress possible 
for the propulsion of a vessel. To see what has 
been the effect of this product of Ericsson's genius, 
one has only to picture what would happen to the 
towering sides of the Olympic with paddle boxes 
sufficient, if they could be constructed, to enable 
them to move at all. What would happen to those 
floating fortresses, the twenty-five-thousand-ton 
dreadnoughts, if they were dependent upon this 
suggestion of the motive power in the mill wheel 
of our ancestors? 

[205] 



ON" THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

The battle which had been fought in the waters 
of Hampton Roads when the sun went down fifty 
years ago to-night has its lesson to-day. If the gov- 
ernment, when the rebellion broke out, could have 
had the full strength of its navy, or if it had pos- 
sessed an adequately equipped army, or, in other 
words, if in time of peace it had been prepared for 
war, the rebellion would have been quickly ended 
and we would have been spared the horrors of four 
years of the bloodiest civil strife in all history. 
There is a mighty preachment now which finds its 
echo in Congress, that we can save money by re- 
ducing the efficiency of the army and denying the 
battleships necessary for the navy. "War is out of 
date," cry these mistaken advocates of peace. 
There was a time when the world was made up of 
nations seeking to gain power and wealth by con- 
quering their weaker neighbors, when the possibili- 
ties of conflict were ever present because of the 
grasping avarice of power. The possibilities of con- 
flict are ever present for us. With the strained 
relations existing between Great Britain and Ger- 
many, nothing but the invincible strength of the 
British navy prevented war last summer. With 
the ambition for a larger place in the sun which 
characterized diplomacy 1 about Morocco', nothing 
prevented one of the bloodiest wars of modern 
times except the efficiency of the French army, 
united with the overwhelming strength of the Brit- 
ish navy. Conditions in Mexico, with the enormous 
sums of foreign money invested in that country, 
and the great numbers of the citizens of various 
nations doing business and living there, are full of 
peril to the Monroe Doctrine of which we are the 
guardian. At any hour all Europe may plump to 
us the question, "Shall we rely on your interpreta- 

[206] 



THE BATTLE BETWEEN" MONITOR AND MEBBIMAC 

tion of the Monroe Doctrine or protect ourselves, 
as we are amply able to do?" If we had a lesser 
navy they would not ask that question. They 
would protect themselves, which they would much 
prefer to do. War with Turkey would not have oc- 
curred if Turkey had possessed a navy equal to 
that of Italy. It came upon every cabinet sud- 
denly as the explosion of a stick of dynamite. 

But, gentlemen, let this night have other lessons 
more intimate and personal. Let it be the com- 
mencement of a movement for an instruction which 
shall put in his proper place in the Temple of Fame 
one who deserves to stand among the immortal 
few who have been the benefactors of mankind in 
different ages of the world, your countryman 
and our naturalized fellow- citizen, Captain John 
Ericsson. 



[207] 



Speech at the Dinner given by the Lotos Club 
of New York to Justice Mahlon Pitney, of 
the United States Supreme Court, May 2, 1912. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: 

It is fortunate for the stability of our institutions 
and the preservation of our Union that the Justices 
of the Supreme Court are not subject, like our can- 
didates for the Presidency, to an open primary. 
The necessity of this new system compels the Pres- 
ident and an ex-President of the United States, 
Governors of States who are candidates, and all 
others who aspire to the great position, to spend 
nearly every day of the months preceding the con- 
vention in living on sleeping cars by night and mak- 
ing rear platform speeches to crowds at stations by 
day in order to impress upon the constituencies 
their several claims for the nomination of their 
party. While the candidates are criticised, it is not 
their fault, but it is the exigency of the new system 
which compels them to appear as far as possible 
in every locality and before all the people of our 
vast country. 

There are about two hundred thousand lawyers 
in the United States, and it is the legitimate ambi- 
tion, I might say the absorbing desire, of every one 
of them to attain the highest honor possible in their 
profession, and that is to be one of the nine Justices 
of the Supreme Court of the United States. If we 
had, as is now advocated for filling vacancies in that 
Court, the open primary, there would be at least 
twenty-five thousand lawyers traveling the country, 

[208] 



TRIBUTE TO JUSTICE MAHLON PITNEY 

speaking wherever they could secure an audience 
and making heroic efforts to attain the first page 
of the daily press. They would be appealing for 
votes, not because of their knowledge of the law 
or of their ability to interpret statutes according 
to the Constitution or of their fearlessness in hold- 
ing the scales of justice evenly for the strong and 
for the weak, for the rich and the poor, regardless of 
popular passion or temporary excitement and en- 
thusiasm; they would be assuring the people of 
each of the forty-eight States that their diverse 
views on questions of currency and of tariff, of war 
and of peace, of State boundary lines and State 
claims to authority against that of the Federal 
Government, were the only ones in the interest of 
the people, and that the candidate could be relied 
upon to favor the people without any weak rever- 
ence for an antiquated Constitution or laws which 
had ceased to meet the popular will. 

What sort of a bench would result from this proc- 
ess if a question on a par with the famous dictum 
about the verdict of the petit jury that no one but 
a divinity could foreknow, and even he might be in 
doubt? Happily, those wise founders of our gov- 
ernment decided that the Justices of the Supreme 
Court should be appointed by the President and 
confirmed by the Senate. It is a remarkable tribute 
to this method of selection that the historian can 
find no criticism upon any choice thus made during 
the one hundred and twenty years of the existence 
of the Court. Whatever may be our views or our 
preferences on the Presidency, there is one ques- 
tion on which there is no divided opinion, and that 
is by his wonderful training as a judge and his ac- 
curate knowledge of the qualities necessary to meet 
all the requirements of the highest Court in our 

[209] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

land, no President, no citizen, is better fitted, or has 
more admirably demonstrated his ability and his 
fairness than President Taft. He has never con- 
sidered whether the best man was a Democrat or a 
Republican; he has never considered what his re- 
ligion might be, but with the opportunity that has 
come to him to appoint a majority of the Court, he 
has in a most extraordinary degree elevated and 
strengthened it. 

In view of the honor conferred upon us this even- 
ing by having the most recent appointee to this 
great tribunal as our guest, I am reminded of the 
beginnings of the Court. After the judges had been 
appointed by Washington and sworn in, they 
opened Court in the rooms of the Merchants' Ex- 
change in this city. There being no precedent as 
to the robing of the judges, as there had been none 
for the formation of the Court, Chief Justice Jay 
appeared in a gorgeous cloak presented to him 
when he received a degree as Doctor of Laws from 
the University of Dublin, while the other judges 
wore the plain, black gown which is still the uni- 
form of the Court. They met every day for three 
days in succession, but not a case was placed upon 
the calendar, nor did a litigant nor a lawyer appear 
before them. Then they accepted as a body an in- 
vitation to a dinner. This was the first ofiicial 
action of the Court. It is a precedent which they 
have followed, not collectively, but individually, 
with the greatest success for one hundred and 
twenty years. When a hostess in Washington 
wishes to make her dinner a success, her first effort 
is not the Cabinet, nor the Senate, nor the House 
of Representatives, nor the Diplomatic Corps, but 
the Justices of the Supreme Court. If she can se- 
cure one of them, and generally there are only two 

[210] 



TRIBUTE TO JUSTICE MAHLON PITNEY 

or three available on account of the immense labor 
which devolves upon them, her dinner is a success. 
She simply builds around the Justice her Diplo- 
matists, her Cabinet Ministers, her Senators and 
her Members of the House, and the central figure, 
like Abou Ben Adhem, leads all the rest. 

It is another curious incident connected with the 
beginnings of the Court that this dinner was given 
by the grand jury of the County. The Court was 
wholly unknown because entirely new, and the 
grand jury believing and saying that they were the 
oldest institution under the common law and its 
guardian and protector, were the proper hosts to 
pay the first honors to the new Court. From being 
wholly unknown, as at the beginning, the Supreme 
Court is to-day the best known, the most respected, 
the most authoritative and the most august tribunal 
in the world. I have tried, but my imagination 
fails me, to create a scene where the Marshal of the 
District of Columbia should, in a similar way, con- 
vey from the grand jury an invitation to the Court 
as a body to officially accept their invitation for 
dinner. 

It illuminates the present situation and discus- 
sion and the claim for nobility of the ideas which 
are now so eloquently and vigorously presented in 
regard to the Court to recall the proceedings of 
the convention which framed the Constitution. 
This was no ordinary gathering. Its members had 
passed through the fires of revolution. They had 
broken ties with the mother country to which they 
were bound by tradition, history and education. 
They were educated men, profound students and 
familiar with every trial of government which his- 
tory disclosed and of every theory which philoso- 
phers had propounded. They were trying upon the 

[ 211 ] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

ruins of the Confederacy, where the central govern- 
ment had no power and the States flouted its 
decrees, its orders and its statutes, to build a safe 
and permanent republic, which should preserve for 
all liberty and law. They debated as to the pow- 
ers of the States and as to the powers which should 
be granted by the States to the Federal Govern- 
ment. They were guided by the spirit of Washing- 
ton's wise advice to "give up a share of liberty in 
order to preserve the rest." After they had formed 
their Congress and created their presidency, there 
still existed the danger of a popular and arbitrary 
Executive becoming all powerful or of a radical 
Congress defying both the President and the Con- 
stitution. Then was originated the idea of the Su- 
preme Court with power to hold both the Execu- 
tive and the Legislative branches of the Govern- 
ment within the limits of the Constitution — a Court 
which Washington, with one of his terse phrases, 
designated, what is has been ever since and always 
will be, "The Keystone of the Arch of Union." 

In those debates these great lawyers, statesmen, 
philosophers and soldiers canvassed thoroughly and 
exhaustively the questions of appointment and of 
removal or, in other words, recall, which are now 
agitating the public mind. While there was a great 
debate and many votes upon other provisions of the 
Constitution, the vote upon the establishment of 
the Supreme Court, and the great and sweeping 
powers which were to be granted to it, was unani- 
mous. There was a proposition that the judges 
should be removed by a majority vote of the two 
Houses of Congress, but as against the present pro- 
vision that their tenure shall be for life and during 
good behavior and their removal only by impeach- 
ment and trial before the Senate, there was but one 

[212] 



TRIBUTE TO JUSTICE MAHLON PITNEY 

vote in favor of the removal by a majority vote of 
the two Houses of Congress. 

There was another feature of this debate which 
illumines the present political situation — the agi- 
tation now to create conditions which will make 
judges more politicians than judges, more legisla- 
tors than interpreters of the law and the Consti- 
tution. A proposition was offered in the Conven- 
tion that the Court should have the power to revise 
acts passed by Congress before they were submitted 
to the President, but the unanimous judgment upon 
this proposition was that the function of the Court 
was not legislative, it was not executive, it was not 
to make laws, but to interpret the laws according 
to the written Constitution. Now, however, we are 
told that it is essential to liberty and to a quick re- 
sponse to the popular will that judicial decisions 
shall be submitted to a vote by the people, or, more 
drastic, that if the judges' decisions of the Court 
are not popular the judge shall be recalled. All 
of this reduced to its last analysis means that jus- 
tice shall be administered by the mob. 

Judge Grover was one of the ablest jurists who 
ever occupied a seat upon our Court of Appeals. 
He was a rough diamond. It was my good fortune 
to know him intimately. I remember that when 
the Court of Appeals sat at Saratoga Springs some 
one met him in the United States Hotel, and said, 
"Judge, are you staying here?" He said, "No, I 
can't stand what they call a course dinner, with 
twenty different things and an hour to serve it. I 
stay at a boarding house where my victuals are all 
on the table at once." 

He was the author of the famous phrase that 
when a lawyer is defeated in the highest Court he 

[213] 



0~$ THE THKESHOLD OP EIGHTY 

has no remedy but to go down to the tavern and 
curse the Court. 

But the statesmen of the hour propose now that 
the attorney shall have a new remedy, and that is 
by petition remove the Court and secure one which 
will decide according to his brief and retainer. 

Within the last year there have been two trials 
where passion and not justice occupied the bench. 
In each it was discovered after the victims were 
killed that they were innocent. Col. Roosevelt 
tells an admirable story of his experience while 
a rancher in the West, when a citizen was hung 
as a horse thief. It was found shortly afterward 
that he was innocent and one of the court which 
condemned and executed, him was appointed to 
gently break the news to his wife. He said, on be- 
ing greeted as he entered the house, "Excuse me, 
madam, but where is your husband?" She said, 
"He is down in the village." Said he, "No, he 
ain't, I have got him in a box out in the wagon. He 
is dead. The. boys made a mistake and hung him, 
but they want me to tell you for your comfort and 
consolation that they have found since that he was 
innocent." 

Any one who has had a large experience in State 
Legislatures or in the National Congress knows 
that many acts become laws under popular clamor 
or to gratify particular interests of capital or labor 
which the Courts afterward declare to be unconsti- 
tutional, but every lawyer knows that the Court in 
rendering its decisions points out how the things 
sought for by the legislative body can be attained 
and still be within the provisions of the Constitu- 
tion. The Court does not legislate, the Court does 
not pretend to say whether the acts are wise or un- 
wise. Then, why this clamor against the decision 

[214] 



TRIBUTE TO JUSTICE MAHLON PITNEY 

and for its recall, or against the Court and its 
destruction? It is because of impatience and 
cowardice. All politicians who have engineered the 
law wish to get immediate benefit from the people 
who desire it, and therefore think that the recall 
would be a shorter method and that it would be a 
club which would intimidate the Court in deciding 
against its convictions and its conscience. The 
other reason is cowardice. The promoters of such 
a statute do not wish to confess that they did not 
know how to prepare it. They are afraid to go 
before the legislative body of which they are mem- 
bers and acknowledge the error which they com- 
mitted in the original act. They are afraid to say 
to that legislative body, "We have now prepared 
a bill which accomplishes the same purpose we 
originally intended, but it is strictly within the pro- 
visions of the Constitution and will be approved 
by the Court." To make such a declaration and 
such an admission would lead to the charge that 
they were half-baked statesmen, and they would 
lose credit with their constituency and authority 
with the body to which they belong. Therefore, it 
is safer, and, properly presented, infinitely more 
popular to ask for the overthrow of the Court. 

During my years as a Senator the question would 
often be discussed in the free intercourse of the 
committee rooms what position under the govern- 
ment was most desirable. Of course, the Presi- 
dency was the first ambition of all, and yet I have 
known Presidents who would be glad to exchange 
the White House for the Supreme Court. But, the 
Presidency aside, the opinion always was that for a 
man who was competent and fit, there was no office 
in the world which presented such opportunities, 
which granted such independence, from which could 

[215] 



ON" THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

be derived so much pleasure and in which there 
were so many opportunities for usefulness and per- 
manent fame as to be a Justice of the Supreme 
Court of the United States. 

The traditions of that great tribunal are an in- 
spiration to every member. Great men have pre- 
ceded them and their decisions have made possible 
the perpetuity of the Union of the States and the 
preservation of a government of liberty, law and 
order. The Court has expanded to apply by inter- 
pretation the general principles of the Constitu- 
tion to meet and permit the marvelous growth of 
the country and the development of its resources. 
That our institutions which were framed when our 
country consisted of thirteen States and three mil- 
lions of people are elastic enough for all the needs 
of forty-eight States and a hundred millions of 
people is due to the wisdom, the courage, the learn- 
ing and the genius of the Supreme Court. 

We here to-night congratulate the Supreme 
Court that to succeed one of the greatest Justices 
who ever honored that tribunal the President has 
appointed and the Senate has confirmed so great a 
lawyer, so profound a jurist, so wise and broad a 
man as our guest, Mr. Justice Pitney. 



[216] 



Speech at the Celebration at the Lexington Ave- 
nue Opera House, New York, of the Fiftieth 
Anniversary of the Entrance upon the Min- 
istry of the Reverend Henry A. Brann, D.D., 
Rector of St. Agnes' Church, May 29, 1912. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: 

I participated the other evening in the celebra- 
tion of the fiftieth birthday of a valued friend. In 
his personality and in his achievements he emi- 
nently deserved the tribute which was paid him. 
Of his half century, one-half, or twenty-five years, 
had been passed in youth and preparation, so that 
his real work was only the half of a half century. 
But the jubilee, or the fifty years from the com- 
mencement of a career, is quite another affair. The 
fiftieth birthday is frequent, but the rounding out 
of a half century in one's career, with energies un- 
impaired and every prospect of future usefulness, 
is an event. 

It is a wonderful privilege to have been an active 
worker in any department of human endeavor dur- 
ing this half century. Every year of it has been 
an incentive to renewed effort, and its consumma- 
tion full of inspiration and pride. We may look 
over all available records of the past, and, except 
the birth of Christ, there is no period in which so 
much has been accomplished for human happiness, 
for liberty, for prosperity, for the advancement of 
the individual and the betterment of the world. 
We are here to congratulate our friend that his ac- 
tivities have been abreast with these achievements 

[217] 



ON THE THKESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

and that in his sphere he has been a factor in the 
best of these results. 

I had a conversation with Mr. Gladstone at the 
zenith of his power. He was reminiscent and, as 
usual, delightful. He said, "If I had to select from 
all the half centuries of recorded time the one in 
which I would have preferred to live and work, I 
would have chosen the one in which I have lived 
and worked, because it has been pre-eminently an 
era of emancipation." While he did not enlarge 
upon this, I knew that he referred to religious 
emancipation in Great Britain, to the abolition of 
slavery in the Western Hemisphere and the advance 
of liberal ideas on the Continent. But if he could 
have lived another quarter of a century and have 
had 1912 as the end of his fifty years, how much 
more extraordinary would have been the achieve- 
ments of the period, for since his time the advance 
of the world has been unparalleled. The arts, the in- 
ventions, the scientific discoveries, the development 
of resources unknown before, the new uses of elec- 
tricity and of steam have increased beyond calcu- 
lation the power of man and the wealth of nations. 
Emancipation has been more rapid than during the 
fifty years Mr. Gladstone described. There is no 
real autocracy left in the world. Many kingdoms 
have become republics, and kings, where they still 
seem to have a prominent place, are there because 
monarchy is held to be the keynote of their insti- 
tutions, but the power of the monarchy is reduced 
to registering the will of the people. The extraor- 
dinary emancipation of the period since Mr. Glad- 
stone died is the freeing of the mighty forces of 
nature which have been pent up in the air and in 
the waters and in the earth from time immemo- 
rial. The titanic explosions, which were cyclones 

[218] 



TRIBUTE TO EEV. HENRY A. BRANN, D.D. 

and earthquakes and tidal waves, devastating the 
earth, have been worshiped by savage, barbarian 
and even civilized peoples in all ages as powers of 
evils to be placated. The fearless and audacious 
spirit of scientific investigation has penetrated the 
secrets of nature, has entered the treasure house in 
which were kept the forces of the air, of the water 
and the earth. Most of them now are made the ser- 
vants and not the masters of man. 

Among the latest and most beneficent of the 
forces wrested from nature is wireless telegraphy. 
It has been the tragedy of the ocean that great ships 
have been lost and their fate a mystery never 
solved. But for the wireless, we would never have 
known the fate of the Titanic, and perhaps none of 
her passengers would have been saved. The wire- 
less rescued a part ; if man had done his duty, as he 
ought to, probably none would have been lost. 

But the wireless taught us another lesson. It has 
been the claim of the romancers and the idealists 
that the Christian teaching of peace and good will 
among men has made impossible a recreation in 
any form of the age of chivalry. Real heroism, they 
say, can only be displayed, its best qualities nour- 
ished and preserved upon the battlefield or in com- 
bats where armed men risk life and fortune for the 
cause in which they believe. But the wireless ac- 
count of what occurred on the Titanic shows that in 
this Christian age there is a heroism purer, higher, 
greater than that developed in the mad passions 
which are aroused by the fury of the conflict, the 
sight of blood and the roar of battle. Mr. and Mrs. 
Straus refused to be separated. Colonel Astor and 
Major Butt, knowing that their fate was sealed, do- 
ing their best to rescue the women and the children, 
and, above all, the band, allaying the panic and 

[219] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OP EIGHTY 

arousing hope of eternal life, by playing, until sub- 
merged by the waves, "Nearer, My God To Thee!" 
My friends, there is no picture of the brave going 
to their death which equalled that which came to us 
on waves through the air. 

We have had twenty-seven Presidents of the 
United States, and Doctor Brann has been carrying 
on his work under the administration of twelve, or 
nearly half of them. He had on his desk in his rec- 
tory the morning after it was delivered that gem 
of American oratory — President Lincoln's speech at 
Gettysburg. His prayers ascended, as is always the 
case at a new administration, for the watchful care 
of the Almighty over the life and the official acts 
of President Grant. His petitions were among the 
most fervent of those offered all over the land for 
the preservation of the life, after the attempt to 
assassinate him, of General Garfield. He has pre- 
served the even tenor of his way, pursued without 
interruption his duties to his Church and as a citi- 
zen during the strenuous times of President Roose- 
velt. Even with the sound of battle coming to us 
to-day from all over the country, because of this 
most original and titanic force in our public life that 
there has been in these fifty years, the Doctor still 
has unabated faith that whatever happens is for his 
own wise purposes under the motto of "God doeth 
all things well." 

Distinguished as have been the surroundings in 
the many fields of our friend, he has been most 
happy in having his career at this particular period 
in his own Church. The American College of Rome 
has been for fifty years sending out graduates to 
their appointed work, and it is his privilege to stand 
at the head of that devoted body of men as first and 
oldest alumnus. 

[220] 



TRIBUTE TO REV. HENRY A. BRANN, D.D. 



For many, many years of the Doctor's ministry 
he had for his superior Leo XIII, who in addition 
to his ecclesiastical virtues and accomplishments 
was a great statesman and an accomplished diplo- 
mat. I had the honor of a long interview with him. 
He was a very old man and seemed physically ex- 
ceedingly frail. I treasure his compliment to me 
when he said, "You are the President of a great rail- 
road company employing over thirty thousand men. 
The majority of them are of my Church and not of 
yours, and I am glad to greet you and thank you 
that in your administration you make no distinc- 
tion whatever between those of your faith and those 
of mine." He has been called the workingman's 
Pope. His conversation ran upon that subject, 
upon the desire of his life to bring about better re- 
lations between capital and labor. Then suddenly, 
as if the old fire which had made him a marvelous 
preacher in his prime was flaming with original lus- 
ter, he grasped the arms of his chair, blood came to 
his pallid face, his eyes flashed, his voice was musi- 
cal, while he said, and this was prophetic, for there 
was very little of this at that time in the world, 
"The greatest menace to the welfare of the work- 
ingman and to the stability of the Church is Social- 
ism. Socialism is the denial of all authority, divine 
and human. Without authority and without law 
there can be neither order nor protection of life or 
property, nor the continuance of Christian civiliza- 
tion." 

But I count, as I think our friend must, as one 
of the greatest blessings of his fife that his early 
career in the ministry was under Archbishop 
Hughes. Archbishop Hughes broke the traditions 
which surrounded his sacred office and virtually 
entered the diplomatic service of the government 

[ 221 ] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

in the time of its greatest need. The question of the 
success of the Union was largely dependent upon 
preventing interference by the great powers of 
Europe. It was known that these great powers at 
that time, controlled as they were by monarchical 
and aristocratic forces, were in favor of the Con- 
federacy because they thought that in the breaking 
up of the Union there would be a check upon the 
spirit of republican and democratic ideas. The 
Archbishop visited France and other continental 
countries, and by his diplomatic ability was a great 
factor in holding back France and other nations 
from coming to the aid of the Southern Con- 
federacy. 

I think among the best recollections of Doctor 
Brann must be that he returned on the same ship 
with the Archbishop. Certainly the discourse of 
the Archbishop upon his mission or its results upon 
the necessity of saving the Union and preserving the 
perpetuity of the Republic of the United States 
was the opening for the young priest of a univer- 
sity of practical patriotism and good citizenship 
which began when the ship started and he was 
graduated when he landed in New York. We all 
know that during the whole of his life since the 
Civil War, the good Doctor has been foremost, as 
far as his office would permit, in every effort lead- 
ing to good government. 

The most frequent of discussions is "What is 
success?" We all understand what is meant by it 
for the lawyer or the doctor, for the banker or the 
merchant, for the artist or the youth struggling in 
any way for promotion. Seldom, however, is it dis- 
cussed in relation to the ministry. A successful 
minister must have qualities which would enable 
him to advance in law, or in medicine, or in busi- 

[222] 



TRIBUTE TO REV. HEXEY A. BBAXX, D.D. 

ness, or in teaching. No one could build four 
churches, as the Doctor has done, free them from 
debt and start them successfully upon their career 
unless he was a good business man, nor avoid en- 
tanglements with contractors and with the owners 
of the brick and the lumber and the stone and the 
lime unless he was a good lawyer. No one who has 
enjoyed the privilege can go through the schools 
which are maintained by our friend without recog- 
nizing his eminence as an organizer and an educa- 
tor. It is the glory of the ministry that while it 
is one of sacrifice because the qualities which would 
make for material success in life or for fame in 
public life are concentrated solely upon parish 
work, nevertheless there are compensations which 
are granted to no other calling. 

In a remarkable letter found in the life of 
Cardinal Newman, he describes his visit to St. 
Peter's at Rome. He says, "People are going and 
coming, talking with this, that and the other ; in the 
meantime people are praying silently, others are 
kneeling before an altar taking part in a service — 
all this which is the world of worship and activity 
and conversation is going on within the walls of the 
Christian Church ; and," he said, "it is splendid, for 
here is the world granted a place in religion." 

In that description is, I think, a revelation of 
the secret of the success in his work of our friend, 
Doctor Brann. He has always recognized, and with 
rare diplomacy and skill has carried out in his mis- 
sion the idea that the world has a place in religion, 

My friends, let us briefly sum up these fifty years. 
There pass in review the thousands of girls and 
boys who have been rescued from the slums and 
made good citizens, good fathers, good wives, good 
mothers. There are thousands who have entered 

[223] 



ON" THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

the sacred bond of matrimony and under the teach- 
ings of their pastor have proved that marriage is 
not a failure, but the greatest blessing upon earth. 
There are thousands who have been comforted in 
passing from this world to the next and have felt 
because of the consolation he administered they 
were to be received with hope and joy in the great 
beyond. To-night this procession of the living and 
the spirits of those who are gone, whether present 
within this hall or far away over the earth or in the 
realms above, join in one anthem of praise and 
thanksgiving for the past and of prayer and hope 
for the future of our good friend. 



[224] 



Speech at the Fourth of July Celebration of the 
American Society of London, England, July 
4, 1912. 

Mr. Chairman, My Lords and Gentlemen: 

It has devolved upon me to propose the senti- 
ment of "The Day We Celebrate." I am very 
grateful to my lifelong friend, His Excellency the 
American Ambassador, for his tribute to my ven- 
erable years, and I look upon him as a very promis- 
ing young man. (Laughter.) When he boasts of 
having, at his first ballot, voted for Abraham 
Lincoln, I can say I voted four years before for 
John C. Fremont, the first presidential candidate 
of our party. I got in the habit in that campaign 
of 1856 of appearing upon the platform on differ- 
ent occasions, and I have been unable to get over 
it for fifty-six years. Yet, when our Ambassador 
alluded so charmingly to the long linger which I 
have had on the stage, I was afraid that you and 
my friends at home might liken me to the boy who 
wrote a letter of twenty pages home from boarding 
school to his mother and closed with the P. S., 
"Dear Mother, please excuse my longevity." 
(Laughter.) 

It has been my pleasure to attend Independence 
Day celebrations in London during the reigns of 
Queen Victoria, King Edward VII and now to- 
night. On each of these occasions I could bring the 
hearty good-will and respect of the American people 
for the late Queen, a tribute of good fellowship and 
camaraderie, continued since his boyhood visit, to 

[ 225 ] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OP EIGHTY 

the late King and an appreciation of his statesman- 
ship and especially of his uniform and universal 
friendship for America and Americans. I can say 
now that these sentiments for the great Queen and 
the genial and popular King are continued with 
hopeful prophecy to their successor, King George. 
(Applause.) 

The Ambassador suggested that I report about 
the recent convention which renominated President 
Taft. I attended as a delegate the National Re- 
publican Presidential Convention at Chicago, leav- 
ing it with only time enough to catch the steamer 
which brought me here. The daily papers, as never 
before, were filled with the reports of the proceed- 
ings of that convention and, on my sailing clay, 
with predictions of the Democratic gathering at 
Baltimore. The space left, however, was largely 
devoted to an almost hysterical advocacy of what 
is called a "sane and safe," or "safe and soundless," 
Fourth of July. To one who commenced celebrat- 
ing these anniversaries seventy-five years ago, this 
seems to be a tribute to the sestheticism, the dilet- 
tantism and the tenderfootism of a degenerate age. 
Fourth of July without noise is like an electrical 
display without light, or a lion with organs par- 
alyzed when the time comes for a triumphant roar, 
or a rooster without a crow. All the American boys 
of my period, and down until the time when the 
speaking stage was removed from the academy and 
the school-room, declaimed that famous speech 
from Daniel Webster in which he put into the 
mouth of old John Adams a prophecy and an in- 
junction for the celebration of the Fourth of July. 
I cannot recall the exact words, but it was about 
this: that Fourth of July should be celebrated for- 
ever with military and civic processions; that its 

[226] 



FOTJKTH OF JULY SPEECH 

dawn should be greeted with the booming of artil- 
lery and the ringing of the church bells ; its day with 
meetings and orations and its night with fire- works 
and illuminations. 

A famous President of the United States, who 
in early life had an almost hopeless struggle, said to 
me one day: "Was there ever a period in your career 
when you would have compromised with the Lord 
for a moderate certainty and given up all the rest? 
Because that occurred to me in my struggles, when, 
if God had only been willing to make the bargain 
and given me an academy with an endowment that 
would assure me three thousand dollars a year, I 
would have surrendered all the rest." 

I wonder if any of you have tried to think of the 
first real overwhelming thrill you ever had in your 
life. I suppose most of us would connect it with 
the first application of the parental slipper, or later, 
in adolescence, with the first kiss. (Laughter.) 
What an American boy, properly brought up, would 
associate it with is his first independent, self-reliant 
Fourth of July. Having sat up all night in prep- 
aration as the proud possessor of a three-pound 
cannon, I planted it on the hill by the old home- 
stead, and when the bell from the belfry of the old 
Presbyterian Church and the cannon from Drum 
Hill announced the dawn of the Fourth of July, I 
touched off my artillery. Blistered hands, pow- 
dered cheeks, which lasted for months, eyebrows 
singed, and general demoralization caused by the 
kick of the artillery, simply placed me for a moment 
as a little boy among the soldiers who marched with 
Washington and camped at Valley Forge. (Ap- 
plause.) 

Perhaps it may not be inappropriate, as future 
Fourths of July are dependent in a large measure 

[227] 



ON" THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

upon the result, to give, as Mr. Reid suggests, a 
brief report of the great conventions. 

In the Republican party there have been fifteen 
of these conventions, and I have attended ten, my 
first being in 1864 for the second nomination of 
Abraham Lincoln. In all those gatherings the 
crowds in the galleries, of men and women from 
all parts of the country, outnumbered by ten to one 
the delegates on the floor. They were instinct with 
enthusiasm, and the magnetism of their ardor af- 
fected their representatives upon whom devolved 
the responsibility of nominating a candidate for 
President. 

The cheers, lasting sometimes for half an hour 
and sometimes for an hour, for Lincoln in the 
convention in '64, for Grant in the convention in 
'68, for Blaine and Sherman and Harrison and Gar- 
field in '80, '84, '88 and '92, for McKinley in 1896 
and again in 1900, for Roosevelt in 1904, and 
Roosevelt and Taft in 1908, were the inspirations 
of a lifetime. 

When I made the speech nominating Harrison 
for a second term in the Minneapolis Convention in 
1892, I inadvertently mentioned his opponent 
Blaine, and fourteen thousand people in the galler- 
ies, rose and cheered, with waving handkerchiefs, 
flags and hats, for forty-five minutes, and when 
I mentioned President Harrison, for an hour, so 
that the thirty minutes' address required in its de- 
livery nearly three hours! (Laughter.) 

Now the contrast. During all the scenes, and 
there were many exciting ones, among the dele- 
gates in our convention two weeks ago at Chicago, 
the mention of the historic names of the party and 
of the country, like Lincoln, Grant, Garfield, Mc- 
Kinley, elicited no response whatever from the gal- 

[228] 



FOURTH OF JULY SPEECH 

leries, nor did the names of the candidates arouse 
enthusiasm. This great crowd was not angry nor 
sullen, it was indifferent. 

At Baltimore the proceedings were prolonged 
more days than they have been for sixty years in 
the Democratic party, and a tremendous effort, re- 
ceiving great support, was made to prevent the 
votes of the large states in which great business is 
concentrated and to expel from the convention dele- 
gates who represented great business. 

What does all this mean on Independence Day? 
Talking to a distinguished writer within the last 
few days, he said: "Its parallel is to be found in 
the calm and mutterings of the storm which pre- 
ceded the French revolution." But he was entirely 
wrong. There is not the slightest indication in the 
United States of a revolution. Never in our his- 
tory were we farther removed from what might 
be called the spirit of the French revolution. The 
rights of the people, collectively and individually, 
were never so secure. The power of the people, 
both in the municipalities, in the states, and in the 
general government, was never so supreme. Pros- 
perity was never so universal; business never so 
good, never so promising, and opportunity never so 
hopeful. Labor and capital, each more powerful 
than ever, are more harmonious than ever. The 
railway strike which was threatened a month ago, 
when, if it had eventuated war, for it would have 
been war, would have stopped the turning of every 
wheel on every railroad between Chicago and the 
remotest boundaries of Maine; it would have par- 
alyzed every industry in the Middle and the At- 
lantic and the Eastern States and brought the great 
cities, as well as the smaller ones, to starvation. But 
after free discussion by the representatives of labor: 

[229] 



ON" THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

and capital, it was settled by submission to peace- 
ful arbitration. (Applause.) 

Then, what is the matter? What is the reason 
for the lack of enthusiasm for the great names of 
the party or the statesmanship, or the policies of the 
past and present? Ninety-nine per cent, of the 
American people are earning their living and adding 
to their competence or their fortunes by their per- 
sonal exertions, and the other one per cent, are not 
neglectful of civic or industrial duties. We are pre- 
eminently a business people. There are opportuni- 
ties for the profitable investment in new enter- 
prises giving employment to labor and capital of 
over one hundred millions of dollars, and there is 
a hundred millions of dollars eager to enter and 
exploit these fields. But business, which ought to 
be represented hopefully in politics, has become 
alarmed about politicians. American enterprise 
has no fear of its own ability. It is willing to take 
every risk dependent upon its judgment, but it 
wishes to know where the line is to be drawn as to 
the amount of business which will be permitted to 
be conducted and as to the limits that may be put 
upon genius for affairs and national and local de- 
velopment. The only trouble with us is the mis- 
takes by the politicians of both parties as to the 
real solid, sober temper of the American people. 
We have become the victims of specialization, but 
then this is an age of specialization. I admit that 
the specialists have done wonderful things in vari- 
ous lines. The research work in the Rockefeller and 
Carnegie Institutes has done much for humanity. 
They have taken a common "yaller" dog of ignoble 
birth, and by grafting upon him the organs of 
canine aristocracy have created a thoroughbred 

[230] 



FOURTH OF JULY SPEECH 

which takes the highest prizes in the dog exposi- 
tions. (Laughter.) 

They are discovering and hope to eliminate the 
sources of disease and the microbe of old age. It 
is said that a French specialist has located the 
microbe of old age, and that presently we shall live 
forever. That, however, does not make me feel en- 
tirely happy when I think of a good many men I 
know. (Laughter.) Nevertheless, they are dan- 
gerous. One of the most eminent surgeons in the 
country looked me over critically the other day and 
said: "Senator, I would regard it as the highest 
honor of my professional career if I could operate 
on you for appendicitis." (Laughter.) And if I 
had not been protected he would have strapped me 
on the table. He ignored the fact that my appen- 
dix for nearly seventy-nine years has been perform- 
ing whatever part it does perform in as healthy and 
happy a life as any American wants to live. 

By the way, one thing occurred at the conven- 
tion which will be enjoyed by English-speaking 
people everywhere. There were two men in the gal- 
lery, next to one another, one a lumberman. When 
the New York delegation arrived, the other man 
said : "The New York delegation are all grafters and 
thieves." "Well," said the lumberman, "there is 
one who is not — Merritt." "Merritt," said the 
other, "why he's the Speaker of the House and the 
biggest of the lot." Said the lumberman : "If you'll 
step outside we will argue that question, and I 
think I can convince you that you are wrong." 
"Right," said the other, and they went outside. 
One of them gave the policeman five dollars to see 
it was a fair fight, and when the ambulance was 
carrying the slanderer of Speaker Merritt to the 
hospital, he poked his head over the dashboard 

[ 231 ] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

and said: "Stranger, Merritt is an honest man." 
(Loud laughter.) 

I admire the specialists in discovery who risk 
their lives to find the North or the South Pole, but 
I think the world gains more on the material side 
which adds to the distribution of the products of 
its labor and general happiness by the opening, the 
day before yesterday, of the railway station on the 
site of the palace of Haroun-al-Raschid at Bagdad. 
We can still let the children lie awake or dream 
frightful dreams about the Arabian Nights, but the 
railway in developing new regions gives opportu- 
nity for those children, as the world becomes in- 
creasingly populated, to add to civilization and the 
better living of all races. 

Perhaps the practical value of finding that myth- 
ical flagstaff called the North Pole, which has been 
the dream of discoverers for a century, was best ex- 
pressed by a quarrel which I heard in Washington 
between two very charming women — one an ardent 
partisan of Dr. Cook and the other of Commodore 
Peary. Cook's claim had received a very black 
eye, while Peary's seemed fully established, when 
the defeated lady remarked, with disgust: "Well, 
anyhow, Dr. Cook is a gentleman and a liar, but 
Peary is neither." (Laughter.) 

We have a new school of politics with us which 
has been making very rapid strides in the last few 
years and is represented in both political parties. 
It appeals to the unrest which is common all over 
the world. In Europe it is the unrest of labor; in 
China it is the awakening of the possibilities of 
liberty caused by the return of the students from 
Western civilization. With us in the United 
States it exists, but its definition is difficult. The 
agitators of the new school say to a very busy 

[232] 



FOURTH OF JULY SPEECH 

people absorbed in their ordinary affairs and giving 
only quadrennially close attention to politics: "You 
are deprived of your liberties. We will see that 
they are restored to you. You in your elective 
capacity through the ballot box should perform the 
functions of President and courts and congresses 
and legislatures and municipal bodies. You should 
initiate laws without the bother of representatives 
to prepare and perfect them. You should have the 
power. You should do away with the limitations 
which enable a decision of the court to stand that 
you don't like, or a judge to sit on the bench who 
is unpopular." These hairtrigger philosophers do 
not know that every one of these schemes was thor- 
oughly thrashed out by those extraordinary and 
levelheaded men who framed the Constitution of 
the United States. They had before them the 
example of a thousand years of history of these 
experiments and their purpose was to form a gov- 
ernment of orderly liberty, to prevent the mad pas- 
sion of the hour crystallizing into dangerous legis- 
lation of revolutionary activities. They placed the 
common law above Judge Lynch. The briefest but 
the finest tribute ever paid to the old Constitution 
was by Mr. Gladstone when he said that it was the 
greatest instrument ever created at a single session 
by the mind of man. 

During the 125 years since it was adopted the 
whole world has changed its forms of government, 
and each change has been towards, as if drawn by 
a magnet, the liberties secured by that old Consti- 
tution of the United States. (Applause.) 

The impatient spirit of the new age — the same 
in China as it is with us — was expressed by the Chi- 
nese reformer who called upon an American diplo- 
mat at eleven o'clock in the morning and said : "Ex- 

[233] 



ON" THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

cuse me if I am somewhat in a hurry, because I 
have to prepare a constitution for our country to be 
submitted to the Conclave at two." 

The whole spirit of our Constitution, which is 
now assailed by the Initiative, the Referendum and 
the Recall, is Representative Government — the 
delegation by a busy people of the powers of gov- 
ernment to their own chosen representatives who, 
by frequent elections, are subjected and again sub- 
jected to a revision of their work. Above all, the 
original and yet fundamental idea of American lib- 
erty, which came from that convention and into the 
Constitution, was that there should be an inde- 
pendent judiciary. The Supreme Court of the 
United States has so interpreted the broad prin- 
ciples of the Constitution and so checked the effort 
of popular passion to subvert it that the gov- 
ernment under a written Constitution, which was 
sufficient for three millions of people scattered along 
the Atlantic sea coast at its beginning, is found suf- 
ficient to-day for one hundred millions, peopling 
and developing a continent. 

An English journalist said to me yesterday: 
"How about Canada?" On this Fourth of July I 
can say for the American people: We are glad of 
the relations so mutually prosperous that exist be- 
tween Canada and the United States. We are glad 
of the growing prosperity of Canada, but the Amer- 
ican people do not want another inch of territory 
more than they have now anywhere in the world 
(Applause.) The Filipinos wanting independ- 
ence and our navy to protect them in doing what 
they like, the Porto Ricans wanting immediate 
citizenship and then statehood, and Cuba not know- 
ing what it wants, but holding us responsible, gives 

[234] 



FOURTH OF JULY SPEECH 

all the trouble outside of our own boundaries which 
we desire. (Laughter.) 

A little story, and a new one, which happily 
illustrates that representative government still pre- 
vails in the United States, came to me the other 
day. The most promising of the candidates for 
Congress before the Congressional Convention had 
selected a friend to make the speech presenting his 
name. When the time came for nominations he 
was so nervous and the preliminary proceedings so 
long that he went out frequently for liquid refresh- 
ment. While he was absent his friends found a 
more eloquent advocate to present his name. When 
he returned this stranger, to him, was describing 
in glowing terms the qualifications of his candidate. 
The candidate, not knowing it was himself who 
was presented, turned to his friend whom he thought 
was to make the nominating speech and said: "For 
heaven's sake, when that man sits down withdraw 
my name. If there is any cuss before this conven- 
tion as a candidate who possesses the qualifications 
which this speaker is describing, I am not in his 
class." (Laughter.) 

Well, gentlemen, I have celebrated the Fourth of 
July many and many a time at home and in differ- 
ent parts of our country. I graduated on the 26th 
of June, 1856, from Yale and delivered the oration 
at Peekskill on the fourth of July, and I have been 
at it ever since. I have joined in the celebration 
in many countries of Europe and several times upon 
the sea, but it is peculiarly appropriate and never 
more appropriate than now, that this celebration 
should be in the great metropolis of the British 
Empire. It emphasizes the perpetuity of the friend- 
ship which now exists and always will exist between 
the British Empire and the United States. It em- 

[235] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OP EIGHTY 

phasizes the fact that every difference which could 
possibly lead to trouble between us has been settled 
through the medium of diplomacy and arbitration. 
It emphasizes the fact that each is proud of the 
growth, the strength, the power and development of 
the other. It emphasizes the fact that there is a 
great mission in this world for peace and humanity 
and that this mission is largely in the custody of 
English-speaking peoples. (Loud applause.) 



[236] 



Speech at the Annual Banquet Celebrating the 
One Hundred and Forty-fourth Anniversary 
of the New York Chamber of Commerce, 
Waldorf-Astoria, November 21, 1912. 

President Claflin in introducing Senator Depew 
said: "Our final toast to-night is Theory and Ex- 
perience.' The response will be by an old friend, 
an ever youthful friend, one whose youth seems 
perennial even as that of the Chamber itself. We 
have loved him and honored him for years and we 
welcome him to-night with joy — the Honorable 
Chauncey M. Depew." (Applause.) 

Mr. Depew: 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

I have been introduced many times in the course 
of my long career, but this is the first time it has 
ever been suggested that my age was coeval with 
the one hundred and forty-four years of the Cham- 
ber of Commerce. (Laughter.) 

Of those years the present year of 1912 is one of 
the most important and interesting. We cover a 
wide field, and it is our duty to consider everything 
which affects our foreign and domestic commerce 
and business generally. 

Three events of the highest importance are upper- 
most in our minds — this terrific war between the 
Balkans and Greece, on the one hand, and Turkey 
on the other, which threatens to involve the great 
powers and will certainly change the map of 
Europe; next, the International Congress and 

[237] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

Boards of Trade of most of the commercial cities 
of the world who held their sessions in our country 
and were the guests of this Chamber; and, lastly, 
the government of the United States for the third 
time in fifty-six years passing into the hands of the 
Democratic party. 

All the power and influence of the Chamber of 
Commerce of New York have been given to the 
efforts, so strenuously made in recent years, to pro- 
mote the peace of the world. Until within a few 
months it seemed as if the peace movement had 
made more progress than in all preceding time, and 
the prospects of early success were very great. Sud- 
denly a war breaks out which proves how unstable 
are the relations between nations. A savage con- 
test, which was decided by battle for the Turks six 
hundred years ago, is suddenly renewed after six 
centuries in one of the bloodiest wars of modern 
times. This war illustrates how near the nations 
are at all times to a sudden and violent appeal for 
the settlement of their difficulties and the gratifi- 
cation of their passion, by the arbitrament of the 
sword. 

An American woman writes that she stood beside 
King Nicholas of Montenegro when he gave the 
order for his son to fire the cannon, the shell from 
which exploded soon after in the camp of the Turks 
on the other side of the valley. Within four weeks 
fifty thousand men were dead or wounded. The 
victorious hosts were battling with their defeated 
but defiant and stubborn enemies day after day, 
the armies of all countries of Europe were mobiliz- 
ing and their navies put in active commission, and 
the only barrier to the most terrific and destructive 
war of modern times was the will and power of the 
Emperor of Germany and the Premier of Great 

[238] 



CHAMBER OF COMMERCE SPEECH 

Britain. The exchanges and the markets of Europe 
and Asia were facing possibilities and experiencing 
revolutionary changes which had not occurred since 
the time of the first Napoleon. It is within recent 
recollection of everybody here present that the 
United States became a world power and as such 
interested in this revolution. Nothing illustrates 
our happy situation better than that while we are 
in it we are not of it. If the Emperor and the 
Premier were unable either to prevent others or 
keep their own countries out of the conflict, happily 
nothing could drag us into it. But this situation 
has a pregnant lesson for us. It shows that, after 
all has been done and is being done for peace be- 
tween nations, the unexpected may happen at any 
time. It demonstrates that for our peace, for our 
commerce, for the protection of our coasts and main- 
tenance of our proper position in the world without 
war, our fleet should be kept up to a standard 
adequate to the necessity of any situation in which 
we may be placed. (Applause.) 

The meeting in our country of the commercial 
representatives of all nations was one of the agencies 
for peace, but it also demonstrated that we are to 
be more and more dependent as years go by upon 
our share in the commerce of the world. While 
government farms were plenty and free for the 
settler, we could live happily in continental isola- 
tion, but now the situation is changed. From 
almost purely agricultural we have become more 
largely a manufacturing people. A gathering of 
the representatives of all the activities and indus- 
tries of Europe within our borders was not only a 
revelation to them, but a university for commercial 
education to us. Their amazement and interest 
were not so much as to the size and development 

[239] 



OX THE THRESHOLD OP EIGHTY 

and resources of our country as to our wonderful 
internal commerce. Here was the greatest market 
in the world. Here were more money and more ma- 
terial exchanged than in almost all the rest of the 
world put together. Here was an internal com- 
merce between the states which was more than 
double that of their foreign commerce with each 
other and with all the rest of the world. I met 
many of them, and their eagerness to share in the 
commercial possibilities of our forty-eight states 
amounted almost to hysteria. (Laughter and ap- 
plause.) 

A question of supreme importance, and one in 
which this Chamber is most deeply interested, is 
how far and on what terms and on what basis our 
doors shall be thrown open. Shall this mighty ques- 
tion be decided by theory or by experience? We 
are all glad, however, to see our visitors and there 
is no doubt but that the results will be beneficial 
to us all. 

A little incident occurred recently to me which 
shows that after all we are close together. The sense 
of humor and its development is one of the tests 
of human relationship. When I was in London 
last summer a successful banker said to me, "How 
was the weather on the continent this summer?" 
"Well," I said, "it was so cold in the hottest place in 
France that I had to put a spirit lamp under the 
bulb of the thermometer to raise it to sixty Fahren- 
heit." He said, "Just fancy." (Laughter.) 

I was in Boston a few weeks since, and on our 
way in the taxi to the hotel we passed by the Com- 
mon where the Italians were celebrating some festi- 
val with fireworks and bombs. A well-known citi- 
zen of Boston who met me said, "You have not been 
to our city recently?" I said, "No, but the cordiality 

[240] 



CHAMBER OF COMMERCE SPEECH 

of our reception here to-night was exceedingly 
gratifying to me and touched me very deeply, with 
the fireworks illuminating the sky and the explod- 
ing bombs filling the air on our arrival." He said, 
"I assure you, sir, that they were not for you at 
all." (Laughter.) 

In these two instances we see the link which 
Gladstone so happily mentioned of the tie that 
binds us with our kin across the sea. (Laughter.) 

Last week the papers recorded that a lady arrived 
at Joplin, Mo., who was 113 years of age, and she 
was accompanied by her youngest son who was 85. 
She remarked, as a reason for her visit, that neither 
she nor any of her family had ever seen a railroad, 
a trolley car, an electric light, or a moving picture 
show. Inquired of as to the rest of her family, she 
said that she had left her eldest son at home to take 
care of the other children, her oldest being 95 years. 
(Laughter.) Now, I am not so old as this good lady, 
and unlike her I have had some experience in the 
world. I closed a vigorous campaign in 1856, dur- 
ing which I had for three months made the platform 
ring with eloquence for Fremont and freedom, to 
wake up the morning after election to the victory 
of Buchanan. Buchanan's administration and its 
disastrous results were the inspiration of political 
oratory and Republican party success for many a 
year, but looking back calmly over the intervening 
years and recalling the situation as it was at that 
period, I think that we have done injustice to Presi- 
dent James Buchanan. He was a statesman fully 
capable of the duties of Chief Magistrate in normal 
times, but unequal to them in periods of revolution. 
As in the East, the forces of the Crescent and the 
Cross, which have been facing one another for six 
hundred years, have now come to settlement by 

[241] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

arms which all the powers of the world could not 
stop, so at that time the battle of the ages between 
freedom and slavery had reached its culmination. 
Buchanan did the best he could with his lights, to 
avert the catastrophe, but it was not in human 
power to do it. 

In 1892 the Democratic party came into power 
with Grover Cleveland as President. I knew Cleve- 
land both at the bar and as President. I offered 
him the attorneyship of the New York Central 
Railroad at Buffalo, which included the large busi- 
ness at that time of the western terminal of the 
New York Central lines, and told him that he could 
retain his own business at the same time, and that 
his income would be more than doubled by the as- 
sumption of the post. His answer convinced me 
that he was a very strong and a very remarkable 
man. He said, "I am now earning enough for my 
needs, and no amount of money could tempt me to 
add to the hours of my work or the diminution of 
the days of my play." He always claimed that the 
difficulties of his administration were two things: 
one that he was the heir of the financial and in- 
dustrial disturbance which had grown out of the 
surrender of the country to the silver craze; the 
other that he was betrayed in his policies by a 
minority of his own party sufficiently strong to pre- 
vent his carrying out what he believed would, in 
practice, have been for the best interest of the 
country. However, as things go in a country which 
is governed by parties, every administration is 
judged by its results and not by its_ intentions. 
Nevertheless, I believe that it is already the calm 
judgment of history that one of the ablest and cer- 
tainly one of the most courageous of the Presidents 

[242] 



CHAMBER OF COMMERCE SPEECH 

of the United States was Grover Cleveland. (Ap- 
plause.) 

Now Governor Wilson enters upon the Presidency 
with none of the difficulties which surrounded 
Buchanan and none of the handicaps which troubled 
Cleveland. The political sea was never so calm 
and the political skies were never so propitious. In 
the midst of war we are at peace with all the world 
with no dangers threatening from abroad. Our 
internal conditions are as good if not better than 
they have ever been. A "bumper" crop, unequalled 
in the history of our harvests, is to add to our na- 
tional and individual wealth. Our internal trade 
is of unequalled volume, and with the movement of 
this crop to be largely increased. The mill and the 
furnace are running on full time. Labor was never 
so fully employed, nor with wages so high. The 
farm was never receiving such returns. Our ex- 
ports and imports were never so large and the 
balance of trade in our favor runs into the millions 
of dollars. Our only scarcity is of labor in many 
of our industrial centers. There never was a better 
time when practical experiments with long-cherished 
theories could be carried out with less danger or 
with more benefit, if the theories are correct. (Ap- 
plause.) 

The mission of the hour seems to be to reduce the 
high cost of living, without lessening the opportuni- 
ties for earning a living. The experimenters must 
bear carefully in mind the lesson taught by the 
well-known epitaph upon the tomb-stone in the 
country churchyard, "I was well. I wanted to be 
better. I took physic and here I am." (Laughter.) 

While I belong to the opposite school of economic 
principles from that of the successful party, I do 
not see how it is possible for that party to fail to 

[24-3] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

try the merits of its principles, its platform and its 
promises. We hear much in the vocabulary of 
politics of the mandate of the people. Taft and 
Roosevelt stood for a tariff for protection and 
Wilson for a tariff for revenue only. The com- 
bined vote for Taft and Roosevelt is a million and 
a half more than that for Wilson. Nevertheless, 
under our system of government, by which plurali- 
ties and not majorities are required, the Baltimore 
platform and its advocates are in the possession of 
every branch of the government and the mandate 
is to carry out their promises. All business men, 
and I am looking at these questions now only from 
the business standpoint, insist that the work shall 
be begun at the earliest possible moment and 
finished in the quickest possible time. The trained 
American business mind fears no conditions when 
factors are thoroughly understood. The genius of 
American enterprise, the optimism of the American 
spirit, the confidence in American judgment, have 
pulled us through many a panic, repaired the losses 
of the troublous times, and placed our business again 
upon firm foundations, and with prospering and 
prosperous conditions. The only one thing which 
the American business man cannot meet is un- 
certainty. The business men of the country pulled 
us triumphantly through the depression of '95 and 
'96, and a few of the captains of industry, placing 
patriotically at the service of their country their 
reputations, their acknowledged ability and their 
fortunes, pulled us safely through the panic of 
1907. But in both these instances conditions were 
known. There were no uncertainties about the 
factors. The only question was the existence of 
ability to meet them. With the results of the elec- 
tion, the danger to the judiciary and the recall of 

[244] 



CHAMBER OF COMMERCE SPEECH 

the judges have ceased to be a question. It will con- 
tinue to exist probably in that marvelous city of 
Seattle as an object lesson. There it takes a ma- 
jority to elect a mayor, but a small per cent, can 
put him on the recall. The result is that the highest 
office of that municipality is a greased plank. 
(Laughter.) It takes a majority to put the citizen 
to the top and less than a quarter of the vote may 
pull him down to the bottom, and the procession 
goes merrily on for the gaiety of nations and the 
booming of Seattle. 

President Wilson in numberless speeches has 
felicitously put the remedies which he proposed 
instead of the drastic ones which are declared in 
his platform. He repeats before and after election, 
and we know that he believes what he says, that he 
can take all the evils there are in the tariff out with- 
out interfering with the business of the country, 
and he can suppress the evils there are in the trusts 
without disturbing labor or capital. I am sure that 
all of us, of all parties, wish him Godspeed, and 
we of all parties trust that theory may be so chas- 
tened by experience, and experience so liberalized 
by theory that the net results of the measures and 
policies of the incoming administration will be the 
continuance and the improvement of the happy 
business conditions of the country in which we re- 
joice to-night. (Loud Applause.) 



[245] 



Address at the Exercises at the Republican Club 
of New York, in Memory of the late James 
S. Sherman, Vice-President of the United States, 
November 24, 1912. 

Mr. Chairman and Friends: 

We all loved Jim Sherman. I never knew any 
man who was so long in public life, with the 
jealousies and animosities which are incident to such 
a career, who enjoyed to such an unusual degree 
the affection of his fellow citizens of both parties. 
His career may be one of the few exceptions to the 
rule that a man is not without honor except in his 
own country. For twenty-two years his neighbors 
who knew him best kept returning him to the House 
of Representatives, and doubtless this tribute would 
have been paid him so long as he lived had he not 
been promoted to the Vice-Presidency, the second 
office in the gift of the people of the United States. 
Those who knew him intimately, and they hailed 
from every State and Territory, never addressed 
him as "Congressman Sherman" or "Vice-President 
Sherman," but they all came under the influence of 
that irresistible manner of his which made one 
feel that there was established with the Congress- 
man or the Vice-President a most chummy relation 
which only exists among college classmates. He 
was the most popular undergraduate at Hamilton 
College during his college course, and he carried 
with him through life the youthful feeling of cor- 
diality, of generosity, of unshaken confidence in 
his fellows, which kept enlarging as he grew older 

[ 246 ] 



IN MEMORY OF VICE-PRESIDENT SHERMAN 

into cordial intimacy and affection which with most 
students end with graduation. 

But we must, on an occasion like this, look beyond 
the personal characteristics of our friend in the 
effort to form an estimate of what gave him his 
promotion and distinction in public life; what were 
the ambitions by which he secured so large a degree 
of the confidence and esteem of the American 
people. Environment and heredity have most to 
do in the formation of character and in the making 
of a career. He had an heredity which molded 
his mind and predestined his career. But he lived 
also all his life in an environment which taught 
freedom and crystallized his opinions upon public 
questions. He was born and passed his whole life 
in one neighborhood, which is part of that remark- 
able valley of the Mohawk that extends from Albany 
to Buffalo. He had seen settlements for manufac- 
ture start upon those fertile farms and then become 
prosperous villages and grow into important cities. 
He had seen these manufacturing centers constantly 
expanding in the value of their output, in the en- 
largement of their facilities, in the extension of 
their markets, in the increase of population and in 
the general and extraordinary prosperity. All this 
had happened under his eye while he was progress- 
ing from boyhood to youth, from youth to manhood 
and from manhood to middle age. He had seen the 
wonderful effects of the development of water 
power, which had created happy communities out 
of what had been before a wilderness. His studies 
naturally led to an inquiry into the sources of this 
development which had attracted the attention not 
only of the people of the State, but of the whole 
country. As his investigations and observations 
extended he became firmly convinced that these 

[247] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OP EIGHTY 

were all due to a policy of government, and that 
that policy was the protection of the American 
manufacturer and giving him so far as possible the 
possession of the American market. In his travels 
abroad and in his close examination of conditions 
in other countries he came to the conclusion, so 
fixed in his mind that it amounted to a religion, 
that the American market was the best market in 
the world and the largest, that the stability of our 
institutions and American citizenship of a high type 
depended upon so protecting that market for Ameri- 
can labor and capital that competition with con- 
ditions so different in other highly organized indus- 
trial nations should not be able to deteriorate the 
standard of American wages and living. This was 
the fundamental principle of all his political career 
and the active motive of his life. At a time when 
that idea had become so unpopular with a per- 
centage of the press of the United States, he sup- 
ported it, imperiling his renomination for the Vice- 
Presidency, which he intensely desired, both for 
the honor, and because it would make him the only 
one in the long line of Vice-Presidents to whom 
that honor had come, by emphatically stating in 
his speech of acceptance and in a speech preceding 
his nomination his views upon this question in a 
way which his associates and friends thought un- 
necessary, but he was determined that if re-elected 
the people of the United States should be in no 
doubt as to what he regarded as essential to the 
prosperity and future of the country. 

His speech of acceptance and a message given 
later in the canvass are among the notable incidents 
in our political history of a man when the tide is 
turning otherwise against his opinions daring to 
risk everything rather than have his countrymen 

[248] 



IN MEMORY OF VICE-PRESIDENT SHERMAN 

mistaken as to his views and policies which he 
would, if possible, carry out. 

He died as he had lived and worked in the advo- 
cacy of these industrial policies. 

The period of his service in Congress of twenty- 
two years was for our financial and industrial 
stability among the most critical in our history. 
With the close of the Civil War, we encountered 
all the difficulties of the formation of a new govern- 
ment. New conditions arose which had never 
existed before. The problem of the accumulation 
of great wealth and its proper distribution, so far 
as legislation could legitimately affect it, was an 
urgent problem. The creation of great corporations 
and their combination into greater ones, necessitated 
by competition and the need of economy in adminis- 
tration, presented other problems. The sectional 
difficulty had been settled, but these questions which 
grew out of extraordinary prosperity were the ones 
to be solved. It was a period of experiment from 
the day he entered Congress until he took the office 
of Vice-President, and when the crucial period ar- 
rived during the administration of President Cleve- 
land for a trial of a new experiment different from 
the one in which he believed he had reached a place 
among the leaders of the House of Representatives. 
It is the peculiarity of all representative bodies 
and of every association that they are governed by 
leaders. The average man may rise and reach Con- 
gress because he is a leader in his locality, but when 
he comes to exercise the larger duties which devolve 
upon him as a Representative, he finds it is easier 
to have others in whom he has confidence do his 
thinking than to do it himself, because with most 
men the most difficult task, the hardest work in 

[249] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

the world and the most tiresome is to think and to 
think hard. 

During this period about six men led the House 
of Representatives, and they were led in their turn 
by two very remarkable and masterful statesmen, 
Speaker Reed and Speaker Cannon. Mr. Sherman 
was one of this group during all this critical time, 
and up to the period of his promotion from the 
House of Representatives to the Vice-Presidency, 
he was a leader in the great fight against the effort 
to make silver the standard of value, either by its 
own merit or by some standard of union with gold, 
and also of the experiment with President Cleve- 
land, so earnestly attempted, of getting rid of the 
principle of the protection of American industry 
and reducing the tariff to a revenue basis. 

After the disastrous panic from 1894 to 1896 he 
was intimately associated with McKinley and with 
Dingley in changing the legislation upon this ques- 
tion, and his constructive ability was largely instru- 
mental in the framing of what was known as the 
Dingley Tariff Bill, which reversed the policy of the 
preceding administration and placed the country 
again upon a high protective basis. There followed 
for about eight years a development of our national 
resources, the extension of our railway systems, the 
addition to our industrial output, the settlement of 
new lands, the government of new territories, and 
the further accumulation of power in corporations 
and individuals which led to almost revolutionary 
legislation and a period of great unrest in the public 
mind. Everyone who shared in this prosperity came 
to believe, under the influence of a remarkable 
agitation in powerful sections of the press and many 
political agitators, that while they were better off 
than ever before they had not received their full 

[250] 



IN MEMORY OF VICE-PRESIDENT SHERMAN 

share of this extraordinary development of prosper- 
ity and wealth. So strong and deep-seated was this 
conviction of a wrong which could not be accurately 
denned, that nearly every public man in the country 
saw how much his popularity could be increased 
and how much it depended upon adding fuel to the 
fire. The most remarkable part of our friend's 
career is the manner and the courage with which he 
resisted these temptations. No one in public life 
knew better the trend of current opinion, and no 
one was more capable of becoming one of its leaders 
or exponents. He had, however, no sympathy what- 
ever with destructive policies of any kind. His 
mind was constructive and his ineradicable optimism 
made him cling persistently to the policies and 
motives which he believed had produced the con- 
ditions in the country in which all rejoiced, though 
they might not think they had got their share. He 
was an individualist. He had worked out his own 
career, with no advantageous surroundings or help, 
and he believed everyone could do the same accord- 
ing to his abilities. He admired intensely the man 
who had succeeded far greater than himself in 
politics or in business, but at the same time he be- 
lieved that they deserved what they had won, and 
that it was due to remarkable ability, with the free 
opportunities that could only come where oppor- 
tunities were so free as existed in the United States. 
Envy had no place in his composition. He was 
pre-eminently what is known as a stand-patter and 
proud of it. He lost no opportunity upon the plat- 
form or in the press of acquainting his fellow citi- 
zens with his views. There might be doubt about 
others, Senators and Congressmen might waver, 
candidates might sit upon the fence or straddle it, 
but no one ever doubted where could always be 

[251] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

found the Vice-President. Scores of able men in 
public life who were equally courageous during this 
craze were driven out and consigned to private life. 
It is a marvel how he retained his hold and popu- 
larity. But the same qualities which made his 
countrymen call him "Sunny Jim," dissipated all 
enmity and disarmed opposition. It is most re- 
markable that at this peculiar and critical juncture 
such a man could have won without opposition 
this coveted honor of the second nomination to the 
second highest office in the gift of the people. 

Now, my friends, what is a stand-patter anyway? 
He is never praised, but generally abused. He is 
attacked as an obstructionist. He is said to stand 
in the way of progress and to be the enemy of re- 
form. But an intelligent and courageous stand- 
patter is a wise reformer who does not believe that 
all change is reform. He is a beneficent progressive 
who believes that progress is the law of nations and 
of individuals, but along demonstrated lines, and 
not either by excursions into the unknown or the 
repetition of experiments which have proved failures 
wherever tried. 

I have spoken of heredity as influencing character, 
and the stand-patism in our friend came from the 
strain of Puritanism which he inherited from old 
Captain John Sherman of Cromwell's Army, who 
was his ancestor as well as mine, and who came 
over, because of his faith which he would not sur- 
render, among the early Puritans of Massachusetts. 
That Puritan strain kept him firm in the faith, both 
in speech and in practice, and while he had become 
to an extraordinary degree, unlike his ancestor, one 
of the most genial, companionable and lovable of 
men, nevertheless, like his ancestor, he would have 

[ 252 ] 



IN" MEMORY OF VICE-PRESIDENT SHERMAN 

gone to the stake for a dogma in religion or into 
obscurity for a principle in politics. 

Lincoln was a stand-patter in his time. He re- 
sisted all the passionate and violent forces of his 
day. The Abolitionists, led by William Lloyd Garri- 
son and Wendell Phillips, had no faith in him as a 
candidate for the Presidency, while, after he became 
President, it was only because he was the most 
remarkable man of his time that he was able to re- 
sist the radical assaults of Senator Wade and Thad- 
deus Stevens in Congress and Horace Greeley in the 
press. The most remarkable stand-patism in Mr. 
Lincoln's administration was his resistance for 
nearly three years of a determination so strong to 
make him issue his Emancipation Proclamation 
that impeachment was freely discussed among the 
more advanced of the radicals. 

I have all my life been a close observer of legis- 
lation, from early participation as a member of 
the Legislature and subsequent study and twelve 
years in the United States Senate. I was in the 
Legislature of our State fifty-one years ago. During 
my second term I was for one session of the Legis- 
lature, while the Speaker was unable to perform 
his duty, the Acting Speaker of the New York 
Assembly. The House was evenly divided between 
both parties. The position of Speaker was a most 
difficult one, and it gave me an interest in the office 
and an understanding of its requirements which 
have lasted me through life. I have an exceeding 
admiration for anybody who can acceptably per- 
form the duties of the presiding officer of a deliber- 
ative body. Such a place requires more tact, skill, 
quick judgment and instantaneous decision than 
any other place in public life. The presiding officer 
must have the support not only of his political 

[253] 



ON" THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

friends, but he must enjoy the confidence of his 
political enemies, because of his fairness and judicial 
temperament, and he must possess almost the tem- 
per of an angel. 

The greatest Speakers I have ever known, and I 
had the opportunity of knowing much of them, 
were James G. Blaine and Thomas B. Reed. They 
had not only an acquired talent, but a positive genius 
for this office, but they lacked the one essential 
which made the success of Sherman. Reed raised 
fierce and violent antagonisms so passionate that 
if he had not had a great political majority with 
him, he could not have held his place. Blaine had 
geniality to a remarkable degree, but he failed to 
have that hold upon his political opponents by that 
indescribable college chumminess which charac- 
terized Sherman's relations with all men. 

In the Senate we have few rules. Mr. Sherman 
had been chosen by different Speakers in the House 
of Representatives to act in their place when they 
left the chair and to preside over the Committee of 
the Whole. The House is governed by a collection 
of rules which are very rigid and a line of precedents 
which fills volumes. It was a most difficult thing 
for Mr. Sherman to be taken from a place like that 
to preside over a body which is governed practically 
by no rules whatever, but is a rule unto itself. 
Senators, especially the older ones, resent any effort 
on the part of the chair to curb their wanderings 
or the carrying out of their own, sometimes very 
unregulated, wills. One of the strongest men in the 
Senate, as well as one of the most quarrelsome, took 
a position, was called to order and the Vice- 
President decided against him. The Senator in- 
stantly declared that the independence of the Senate 
had been invaded by the Vice-President, who was 

[254] 



IN MEMORY OF VICE-PRESIDENT SHERMAN" 

not a member of the Senate, but only its Consti- 
tutional presiding officer; that he had no right to 
use a position which was largely one of courtesy 
to violate the traditions of the most august body 
in the world and deny, or attempt to deny, to a 
Senator the rights to which every Senator was en- 
titled. It was a personal attack; it was a bitter 
one. The scene was dramatic. The situation was 
very tense. Most presiding officers would have lost 
their temper, or at least shown heat. It was a 
studied effort to humiliate the Vice-President. 
Sherman's attitude was perfect. There was not 
the slightest indication in his manner or speech that 
the personal element was in his thought. He was 
the presiding officer personified. With perfect 
calmness, good humor and dignity, he stated the 
case to a breathless Senate. He did it so clearly 
and convincingly that the Senate sat down upon 
the tumultuous Senator, and Sherman's decisions 
were never after questioned. 

The study of Vice-Presidents has been to me 
always an interesting one. I knew Mr. Hamlin, 
the Vice-President during Mr. Lincoln's first term, 
and all of them since. The Vice-Presidency is not 
an ideal position. It was placed in the Constitution 
to provide an heir to the Presidency. Curiously 
enough the framers of the Constitution never looked 
to the contingency of both President and Vice- 
President dying. That has been remedied only 
within recent years. In seeking to find some duties 
for the Vice-President, it was finally decided to 
make him the presiding officer of the Senate, with 
no power except to vote when there was a tie. It 
requires a statesman of unusual gifts to sustain 
with dignity this position, and have no portion of 
the power which apparently should belong to the 

[255] 



OX THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

second highest office in the country. A father en- 
courages his son and heir to prepare himself for 
his place and the administration of his estate, but 
Presidents want to succeed themselves for at least 
one term and resent any prominence or popularity 
which might make a Vice-President a competitor. 
So Presidents are almost always jealous of the Vice- 
President, and keep him at a distance. They rarely 
want his advice, and they do not want him to share 
in any way in the responsibilities or in the fame 
of the acts of the administration. This is not pe- 
culiar to our Presidents. I have known the heirs 
to the throne of several countries in Europe. There 
is no position so difficult. The sovereign is never 
on good terms with his heir. The older the sovereign 
grows the more distasteful become the activities of 
the son who is to be his successor. It requires the 
rarest tact and forbearance for the son to keep even 
on good social relations with his father, the Em- 
peror or the King, or his mother, the Queen. I 
remember, because I knew him so well, the difficul- 
ties which surrounded the late King Edward in this 
respect. His mother was a most masterful and 
capable ruler, but as she grew older she became 
more jealous of the prerogatives of the throne. Her 
son for a quarter of a century was old enough and 
capable of being King, and it is one of the highest 
tributes to his diplomatic ability that he could have 
considerable influence and still so adjust himself 
to the situation as not to arouse the jealousies of his 
mother. Presidents do not welcome Vice-Presidents 
to Cabinet consultations or conferences at the White 
House. Nothing is so disturbing, I might almost 
say offensive, to a President as to have it generally 
understood that some measure of administration, 
some suggestion to the Congress, some policy 

[256] 



IN MEMORY OF VICE-PRESIDENT SHERMAN 

enunciated, came from the Vice-President. It has 
been said that the only exception to this rule was 
Hobart. Mr. Hobart was a most agreeable gentle- 
man, with wonderful tact and ability of self- 
effacement, while McKinley, on the other hand, 
was one of the most sweet tempered and amiable 
of men. Undoubtedly Mr. Hobart was oftener in 
the White House and in consultation with the 
President than any of his predecessors, but when 
this fact became exaggerated in the press into a 
common statement that the Vice-President was 
consulted on all questions and his advice in a meas- 
ure potential, it so annoyed the President that 
it would not have been long before this cordial rela- 
tion was terminated. Sherman had been in Congress 
through many administrations and thoroughly un- 
derstood this situation. He never attempted in 
any way to influence or direct the administration 
of President Taft. He was always ready for con- 
sultation, but never let it be known that he had 
been consulted. If a conference had occurred where 
his view had been accepted, he would have been 
the first to assert, if the question had been raised, 
that the conclusions arrived at were the final judg- 
ment of the President himself. 

Mr. Sherman enjoyed life in every phase. He 
had the rarest of social gifts. But his popularity 
was not dependent upon these. He was an inde- 
fatigable worker for his party or for his friends, but 
the hold which he had upon all who knew him was 
not dependent upon these. Everyone who knew 
him at all knew the wonderful fidelity, persistence 
and strength of his friendships. He would go 
farther and risk more to befriend a friend in whom 
he believed, but who was for the moment under a 
cloud, than almost any man in public life. The 

[ 257 ] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OP EIGHTY 

steadfastness which characterized his adherence to 
his political opinions was equally strong in his per- 
sonal relations. By reason of these exceptional quali- 
ties, he has joined the majority regarded and 
mourned by a multitude of friends. But beyond this 
generation he will live. There are two kinds of men 
who rise to distinction: one is the genius who is 
governed by no rules, the other is the man who is 
governed by rules the same as others, but somehow 
he is exceptional. Precisely what makes him excep- 
tional it is difficult to discover. Among his friends 
are many who are as able and as cultured, whose 
character is as high, and whose work is as good, and 
yet in a way which they could not explain he is their 
superior. In other words, he is an exceptional man. 
Mr. Sherman was one of the finest representatives 
of this class. He knew how to do or to say the 
right thing at the right time. He knew how to 
differ with others, and to differ radically, and at the 
same time retain a whole-hearted and cordial rela- 
tionship even with those who could not agree with 
him. It was his gift to have the confidence in a 
rare degree of those who differed with him because 
they never distrusted him. His career will always 
be a bright one in the history of our State, and in 
the story of our Vice-Presidents he will always hold 
a unique and distinguished place. 



[258] 



Speech at the Luncheon of the New York State 
Society of the Cincinnati, at the Metropolitan 
Club, November 25, 1912, in Celebration of 
the Evacuation of New York by the British 
Army, November 25, 1783. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: 

Critics of our ancient and honorable Society say 
that we exist for no other purpose than to per- 
petuate, on the principle of heredity, the founders 
of our organization. This meeting is ample ref- 
utation of such a charge. The educational value 
of celebrating, by appropriate service, the leading 
events of the Revolutionary War by annual meet- 
ings on their natal day cannot be overestimated. 
One of the defects of our school system is its failure 
to emphasize the foundation of the Republic, the 
principles which have been won by the success of 
the Revolutionary War and the names and the 
merits of founders and the principles of the Con- 
stitution. 

There is no more picturesque event in our annals 
than the evacuation of this country by the British 
Army after the successful close of the Revolutionary 
War. The seven years' struggle was over in the 
triumph of the colonies and the foundation of the 
Republic. The terms of peace had been ratified, 
and it was only necessary to arrange the prelimi- 
naries for the departure of the enemy from our 
shores. They were enemies no longer because 
amicable relations had been established between 
the mother country and the colonies by the recog- 

[259] 



ON THE THKESHOLD OP EIGHTY 

nition of the independence of the latter. The 
American Army was in camp at Newburgh, under 
the command of General Washington, and the 
British Army at New York, under the command 
of Sir Guy Carlton. It was arranged that these 
two generals should meet at Dobbs Ferry, which 
was about midway between their two camps. To 
those who were born upon the banks of the Hudson, 
and whose ancestors were involved in the struggle, 
this meeting was of unusual interest. The place 
had long been known as about the center of what 
was called the neutral ground. It was the little 
territory between the outlying posts of either army 
which was constantly raided by irregulars of both. 
Within a short distance was Sleepy Hollow, where 
Andre had been captured by the three famous 
farmers of Westchester, Paulding, Williams and 
Van Wart. This event, as much as any other, had 
contributed to the salvation of the patriot cause. 
The two generals undoubtedly approached the place 
by the Albany Post Road, which is still the main 
source of communication along the Hudson. Both 
armies had tramped over it in victory and defeat 
many times during the course of the struggle. Every 
foot of it was familiar to the American staff and 
soldiers, as it was also to that of their enemies. I 
doubt if any automobile could have passed over it in 
that early day. For seven years it had been abso- 
lutely neglected, and, in its best state, was any- 
thing but an ideal highway. But to the bold riders 
who were to meet at Dobbs Ferry, the surface of 
the roadway was of little moment. 

To-day this historical highway witnesses a pro- 
cession far different from the American and British 
soldiers, the cowboys and the skinners who alter- 
nately and frequently marched over it during the 

[260 ] 



THE EVACUATION OF NEW YOEK 

seven years of revolution. The marchers of to-day 
believe they are tramping for a cause as vital as the 
one for which Washington fought. They are thirty- 
five militant suffragettes, with flags and banners 
and trumpets, on their way to Albany to capture 
the Governor and Legislature. It is a picturesque 
procession which would have interested and sur- 
prised General Washington and Sir Guy Carlton 
during their interview at Dobbs Ferry. 

At Dobbs Ferry they paused to view the historic 
spot where was arranged the Evacuation of New 
York by the British Army, its occupancy by the 
American Army and the successful close of the 
Revolution and the placing of the new Republic 
upon sure foundations built by their valor and 
cemented by their blood. Thirty of the militant 
ladies remained at Dobbs Ferry, while five bravely 
marched on. 

The ribald and unsympathetic press reported that 
the dropping out of the thirty-five was due to 
fatigue and exhaustion. We know that is a libel 
upon these fair, courageous women. They stayed to 
study the history of Dobbs Ferry. 

An unsuccessful attack has been made for many 
years upon this historic name. An enterprising 
citizen of Colonial Westchester had established a 
ferry across the river from the Westchester side 
to Nyack on the Rockland side on the west. To 
inform the public of this means of communication, 
he had posted at the landing a sign, painted by 
himself, "Dobbs, His Ferry." The fact that the 
Commanders-in-Chief of the two armies met here 
for the purpose of arranging the details of the 
evacuation of New York, of its possession by the 
Continental Army, of all that it signified for the 
present and the future of our country and to un- 

[261] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OP EIGHTY 

born generations ought to arouse and to intensify 
local pride in the preservation of such an historic 
spot. But for years the Post Office Department 
has been besieged to change the name to some high- 
sounding suburban title. Some want it called a 
Manor, after an old English estate, while others 
would give to it a romantic designation, gathered 
from the pages of some popular novel whose heroine 
had attracted their attention. However, the sturdy 
old families, whose ancestors have been there during 
the storm and stress of the perilous times of the 
Revolution, have been able so far to resist these 
wealthy newcomers, many of whom have no an- 
cestors connected with the glorious days of Wash- 
ington and the Continental Army. As a Westchester 
man, with a Westchester ancestry running back to 
the first settlement of the county and the purchase 
of land from the Indians, it was one of my most 
agreeable duties during the years I was United 
States Senator to prevent the obliteration of this 
historic name and its associations. If an event of 
such supreme importance, connected with the origin 
of any country in Europe had happened at any 
spot within its borders, it would be a place of pil- 
grimage for all succeeding generations, and the 
neighbors instead of wishing to change it, that there 
might be upon their notepaper a more high-sound- 
ing designation, would have rejoiced that they lived 
in a neighborhood so classic, and look upon the spot, 
where the commanders of the opposing armies met. 
with reverential awe. 

The neutral ground of which Dobbs Ferry was 
the center was raided repeatedly by the irregulars 
of both armies. Two of my grandfathers, both of 
whom served in the American Army during the war, 
owned farms in this territory and were acute suf- 

[262] 



THE EVACUATION" OP NEW YORK 

ferers. As illustrating how long the passions of the 
Revolution survived, the day after I was admitted 
to the bar my father gave me a list of names with 
the admonition that I must never trust any of them; 
that if witnesses they would be liars, and if litigants 
have unworthy cases, and if jurymen always to be 
challenged, because their fathers or grandfathers 
were Tories during the Revolution. 

This meeting between General Washington and 
Sir Guy Carlton had its counterpart many years 
afterward. They were both of the same race and 
blood. The one was the commander of the forces 
of the government which had been supreme in the 
land from its first settlement, and the other the 
commander of the forces in revolution against that 
government which had succeeded. Eighty-two years 
passed, during which the young Republic, recog- 
nized then at Dobbs Ferry, had grown to be one 
of the most powerful nations of the world, when 
there was another meeting between two generals, 
one representing the sovereign power of the nation 
and the other representing the people who were in 
revolution against its authority. In this case the 
place was not Dobbs Ferry, New York, but it was 
Appomattox, Virginia. In the first instance the 
revolution had been successful; in the second', the 
revolution had failed. The leaders in the first meet- 
ing were General Washington and Sir Guy Carl- 
ton; in the second, General Ulysses S. Grant and 
General Robert E. Lee. The issue of the first of 
these great meetings was the formation of the new 
Republic and launching it upon its mission as an 
independent nation. The issue of the second meet- 
ing, eighty-two years afterward, was the reuniting 
of the partially broken Union and the reestablish- 
ment of the Republic upon a surer foundation and 

[263] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

with a larger measure of freedom, opportunity and 
hopefulness than ever before. 

The gathering, as always between great soldiers, 
must have been largely reminiscent, for Washing- 
ton had been long an officer in the Colonial forces, 
serving under the British flag and associating with 
the British Army, and the incidents of the cam- 
paign, so fresh to each of them, were memorable 
and undoubtedly furnished material for a con- 
versation much longer than the preliminaries which 
were easily arranged. Sir Guy very properly 
thought that his army should remain until the 
meridian. It was a happy suggestion that until 
the sun has passed toward the setting, the old order 
of things should remain, and the army representing 
the old government should still be upon British 
soil, but when the sun started onward toward its 
setting, then should the march begin of that evacu- 
ation, which should signify and illustrate the setting 
of the sun of any foreign power within the limits of 
the new Republic. 

A little incident indicates that humor had taken 
the place of animosity between the two armies. 
The flagstaff on the battery at Fort George had 
been greased by the departing British soldiers to 
make it as difficult as possible for Americans to 
climb and raise the American standard. However, 
the enjoyment which they expected from this prac- 
tical joke was spoiled by the ingenuity and agility 
of an American sailor. He succeeded in reaching 
the top of the flagstaff, and the last detachment of 
British soldiers which entered their boats to join 
their ships saw the American flag floating from the 
top of the greased pole, from which their own 
standard had been lowered an hour before. 

Seven years before the entry of the Continental 

[ 264 ] 



THE EVACUATION OF NEW YORK 

Army into New York it had been driven from the 
island, and its retreat had been along the same high- 
way upon which it returned in triumph seven years 
later. When one recalls the privations and hard- 
ships of the revolutionary soldiers during this long 
war, their sufferings from lack of food and clothing, 
as well as the perils which they had encountered, 
one can well imagine the elation, the enthusiasm 
and the elastic step with which they made their 
triumphal entry into our metropolitan city. 

It was on that day that our Society of the Cin- 
cinnati had its first banquet. The British fleet had 
passed the Narrows and were out of sight when 
Governor Clinton gave a dinner to the American 
officers at Fraunce's Tavern. The Cincinnati So- 
ciety had been formed by General Washington in 
the camp at Newburg on the fourth of July, 1783, 
and on the twenty-fifth of November, 1783, the 
Governor of the State of New York, who was also 
a Brigadier General in the Continental Army, gave 
this dinner to Washington and his officers. All of 
them were members of the newly formed Society 
of the Cincinnati. No such banquet has ever been 
held in our country. The war was over, and these 
veterans were to bid each other good-by, never to 
be again reunited, and to return to their homes. 
The Republic, for which they had fought seven 
years, was now a recognized sovereignty among the 
nations of the world, but the problems of organiza- 
tion and of government for the Thirteen Colonies 
cast a gloom upon the gathering. These veterans, 
who were both soldiers and statesmen, knew that 
there were before them perils as great as those from 
which their valor had rescued the country. In the 
next five years of trial and experiment with govern- 
ment this adventure came near being wrecked. 

[265] 



ON" THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

Failure attended the preliminary trials until finally 
the Constitution, as we have it to-day, was adopted 
by that extraordinary convention over which Gen- 
eral Washington presided. Its adoption by the 
convention was largely due to the persuasion and 
the personal influence of General Washington. Its 
adoption by the States was largely due to the officers 
of the Continental Army, the comrades of Wash- 
ington, who in every State became the recognized 
advocates of this work of that wonderful body over 
which their beloved commander had presided. That 
Constitution has lived for one hundred and twenty- 
five years, practically unchanged. Gladstone's 
tribute to it, "The American Constitution is the 
most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time 
by the brain and purpose of man," has been justified 
by the experiences of the years. All that we are 
as a nation is due to the wonderful foresight bf 
those men who framed this great instrument and 
to the adaptability of their work to every change 
in conditions during this century and a quarter. 

After one hundred and twenty-five years of 
marvelous development, expansion, prosperity, 
liberty and happiness under the Constitution, we 
are now told it must be altered and its fundamental 
spirit of Representative Government destroyed. To 
uphold this great charter of law and order with 
liberty, is one of the duties which devolve upon this 
Society of the Cincinnati, the sacred trust imposed 
upon its members by the fathers. 

But we go back to the banquet. Let us for a mo- 
ment recreate the scene. It was the custom on such 
occasions for toasts and responsive speeches. We 
can easily imagine that the first sentiment was to 
the new Republic and a prayer for its perpetuity. 
The next, with more acclaim and more emotion than 

[ 260 ] 



THE EVACUATION" OF NEW YORK 

any compliment ever offered to a human being, was 
to the commander-in-chief, General Washington. 
The response of the General, for he was no speaker, 
was not in words, but in an emotion which was 
shared by them all. Then came a grateful recog- 
nition of the services of our French allies and of a 
bright and witty response from General Lafayette. 
We can see the martial, rotund figure, with genial 
countenance, of General Knox rising to respond for 
the army. "Auld Lang Syne" has been the anthem 
which has closed many an historic gathering, but 
never was it sung with such fervor and feeling as 
on this occasion when the past was secure, when 
the present was so glorious, when heroes were clasp- 
ing hands, and when the future was so full of doubt, 
and, at the same time, of hope. 

Nine days afterward came the most pathetic inci- 
dent in the history of the Army of the United States. 
The officers had again assembled to bid a last fare- 
well to General Washington. It was once more 
in old Fraunce's Tavern. The war was over, the 
victory had been won, the Republic was founded, 
the army disbanded. These companions in arms 
who had suffered so much and fought so gloriously 
for seven years were to give up their commands and 
return to their homes. To many it was to privation 
and poverty, for everything had been sacrificed for 
their country. A hand clasp, a muffled good-bye 
and tears obscuring the sight was the farewell of 
these gallant men to their wonderful commander. 
They were all members of our Society. They were 
bidding good-bye to the Commander-in-chief of the 
army who was returning to private life, and also 
the President-General of the Society of the Cin- 
cinnati. They all felt that while they might meet 
in the future in their several States and the general 

[267] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

Society once a year, there was no possibility that 
all should be gathered again, and, therefore, that 
this was the most significant meeting of the Society 
formed for such a glorious purpose for the country, 
and in whose perpetuity they believed was the 
preservation of the principles upon which the gov- 
ernment had been founded. It was their hope and 
prayer that their descendants should strive through 
succeeding generations to preserve intact all that 
had been won by the valor of their ancestors. 



[268] 



Speech on the Occasion of the Presentation of 
the Grand Jewel of the 33°, at the Masonic 
Hall, New York, December 20, 1912. 

Brethren: 

Many things occur to one during life which are 
memorable in their influence upon character and 
career; others which give distinct pleasure so great 
as to separate that day from others and make it a 
red-letter one. This is especially the case with 
gifts. No boy ever forgets his first watch. No girl 
ever forgets her first bracelet or ring. Little note is 
taken of these incidents at the time, but they be- 
come more precious with advancing years, and as 
the days of the gift recede the memory of them 
grows brighter. 

Middle age also has its gifts from the larger circle 
which has then been formed and the closer inti- 
macies which have been made. It is after one has 
passed seventy that evidences of friendship are more 
cherished. It is one of the lamentable incidents of 
a career that those whom we love and cherish drop 
away and join the majority while we go marching 
on. The circle narrows, and, except for certain 
redeeming features, the period beyond threescore 
and ten would grow more and more lonely until one 
stood absolutely alone. This must be the case with 
those who have not cherished, during their oppor- 
tunities, love and brotherhood. It is possible to 
ward off this isolation by keeping abreast with the 
times and active in all living discussions and in- 
terests. It is possible to form associations with 

[269] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

those who have come later upon the stage, but they 
are never the warm friendships, the intimacies and 
the confidences of youth and of middle age. 

There is one absolute panacea, however, for these 
ills, and that is found within the bosom of Masonry. 
Masonry is ever young, and its associations ever 
fresh. Within its walls the sentiment which is the 
inspiration of the Craft is the perpetual youth of 
friendship, of companionship and of brotherhood by 
means of the sacred tie. 

We are now within a few days of Christmas. It 
is a period of festivities which are peculiarly affili- 
ated with our Order. We celebrate at Christmas 
time the coming upon earth in the person of Divinity 
appearing as a man, the universality of love and 
peace and good will among men. It was a doctrine 
which had never been known and never practiced 
before. It has been working its way for nearly two 
thousand years, until now it is recognized universally 
as the mainspring of action for happiness both with 
individuals and with nations. The fact that there 
is a war raging in Europe does not militate against 
the growth of this idea, In the olden time the world 
was always at war — at war for territory, for revenge, 
for racial hatred, or for the ambitions of reigning 
dynasties in monarchical countries. There were 
certain great questions which could be solved only 
by war. With us, it was the question of slavery, but 
that eliminated we will have peace among ourselves 
forever. This war in the Balkans is a war of re- 
ligions which has been slumbering for six hundred 
years. The Balkan peasant wears mourning upon 
his hat for defeat in a battle with the Turks six 
centuries ago. The oppression by the Mohammed- 
ans of the Christian natives during all these 
ages has finally culminated in the present struggle. 

[270] 



THE GRAND JEWEL OF THE 33° 

The victory of the Balkan Christian over the Mo- 
hammedan Turk is due to the advancement of the 
ages, as well as to modern ideas penetrating their 
mountains, reaching them in their schools, being 
carried back to them by their immigrants who have 
come to America, made a competency and then re- 
turned home, while nothing in all this time has been 
able to penetrate the fatalism of the Koran. The 
spirit which started two thousand years ago, work- 
ing out for these Balkan peoples brotherhood with 
each other and a common faith which united them, 
notwithstanding territorial divisions, has enabled 
them to beat the Turk, who has advanced little 
according to modern ideas from his ancestor who 
swept over Europe in that distant age. 

But Masonry has grown stronger with the cen- 
turies. It appeals to the best element of human 
nature, to the only living thing there is in humanity, 
and that is the brotherhood of man and the father- 
hood of God. 

There are distinctions in this world, not so great 
as there used to be, but they still exist and always 
will. In a Republic like ours all men are equal 
one day in the year, when, as citizens, they deposit 
their ballots, but every other day in the year they 
differ in fortune, in station and in almost every way. 
But those who enter the sacred portals of Masonry 
leave behind their titles and their distinctions and 
come in all as men and brothers. This is not for 
one day nor for one year, but for all time. When 
a Mason has advanced so that he reaches the exalted 
position of the highest honors in the Scottish Rite, 
he carries with him not only this brotherhood and 
all that it means in helpfulness, but he realizes as 
he never did before that there are gradations in 
truth. Not but what all truth is the same, but in 

[271 ] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OP EIGHTY 

the purer and more elevated and more clarified 
atmosphere of the Scottish Rite degrees all sides of 
truth and all the beneficent power of truth and all 
the energizing and recreating power of truth are 
clearer than they ever were before. 

A new society has been formed and assumed a 
title which has added a new word to the English 
language. They call themselves "Spugs." Within 
a month they claim that twenty-two hundred have 
enrolled under their banner, and each one, both 
men and women, proudly says, "I am a Spug." The 
idea of the society is to stop the useless giving at 
Christmas which desecrates both the day and the 
gift. A gift is worse than useless; it is an injury 
unless accompanied by the proper sentiment from 
the giver and a reciprocal sentiment from the re- 
cipient. I know of nothing more demoralizing than 
the painful consultations of Brown and Smith and 
Jones with their wives as to what they shall do for 
Robinson, and of Robinson with his wife of how 
he shall reciprocate what he is afraid he will get from 
Brown and Smith and Jones. I know of a lady who 
from a person she cared nothing about, except so- 
cially, received a fan, and the next year she sent 
it to another whom she cared nothing about, except 
socially, and another year that person sent it back 
to the original giver, and then all three became 
enemies. Christmas in a family, and especially for 
the children with Santa Claus still a reality, is the 
most delightful festival of the year. 

But you are presenting me with a gift to-night 
which has a significance not to be found in any 
Christmas offering. It is more than the watch or 
the ring or the necklace because it has no duplicates. 
Money cannot purchase it; rank cannot secure it; 
power cannot win it. It is the original creation 

[272] 



THE GRAND JEWEL OF THE 33° 

of the inspired artist who threw into it an expression 
which none but those entitled to wear it can under- 
stand or the sweetness and the charm and the love 
which it signifies. Its appearance carries the wearer 
everywhere among brethren whom he never knew 
before, and who seeing the emblem are his brothers 
at once. To me, appreciating as I do, all that the 
emblem stands for, and all that it means, there 
comes an added significance and power which warms 
my heart and touches me very deeply. It is that 
those who have chosen me to be a brother among 
them have not only conferred upon me that great 
honor, but that they have also assumed and claimed 
the privilege of securing this jewel and of giving 
it to me not only for what it means, but for what 
they think of me and what they know of the regard 
I have for them. 



[273] 



Speech as Chairman at the Pilgrims' Society 
Luncheon to the Delegates from England, 
Belgium, Canada and Australia to Arrange 
for Celebrating 1914, or One Hundred Years 
of Peace Between the United States and Great 
Britain, Waldorf-Astoria, New York, May 5, 
1913. 

Gentlemen: 

It is a very pleasing duty which I have to perform 
here to-day. The Pilgrims' Society was organized 
by the English and Americans in London, and the 
Americans and English in New York, for the pur- 
pose of promoting and perpetuating good relations 
and peace between the English-speaking peoples of 
the world. (Applause.) 

We have, in the course of the decade during 
which we have existed, welcomed representative 
men of both countries, both in the capital of Great 
Britain and in New York City ; but there never has 
been so significant an occasion connected with the 
purpose of this Society as that which calls us to- 
gether to-day. (Applause.) 

We are here to welcome and to greet with all the 
honors representatives of Great Britain who have 
crossed the ocean on the glorious mission of pre- 
paring, with their brethren of Canada and the other 
English possessions round the world, with the people 
of the United States, appropriate ceremonies for 
the celebration next year of one hundred years of 
peace between the English-speaking nations. (Great 
applause.) 

[274] 



ONE HUNDRED YEAES OE PEACE 

It is somewhat dramatic that we meet here at 
this particular time, when the world was never so 
near a great conflict, and when the world was never 
so armed and in preparation for it. While con- 
tinental nations are burdening themselves beyond 
all precedent in order to be ready for war, which 
the Prime Minister of Great Britain stated the other 
day we had just escaped, and which the press says 
we are on the eve of now, we, representing Great 
Britain and the United States, meet in the midst of 
war alarms for peace and peace alone. (Hearty ap- 
plause; cries of "Hear, hear!") 

Now we have with us to-day also the representa- 
tives of the city in which this commission met. It 
is singular that the histories, whether they are 
written by English or American historians, give only 
a scant line to the meeting of these commissioners 
a century ago in the city of Ghent. When ages 
from now Macaulay's New Zealander, who was to 
stand on the broken arches of London Bridge and 
view the ruins of St. Paul, arrives home he will 
write a history of the world, and I venture to say 
that he will give more pages to the meeting of those* 
Peace Commissioners at Ghent a century ago and 
its results than any other one in the million years 
which he discusses. 

Why, my friends, that was a marvelous commis- 
sion, and the names of two of those commissioners 
are still household words with us — John Quincy 
Adams, afterwards President of the United States, 
and Henry Clay, the most eloquent statesman and 
the most popular leader of his time. It is recorded 
in a few letters which are in existence that when they 
arrived in Ghent the Society of Arts and Sciences 
elected them members. Now, those statesmen knew 
mighty little about arts and sciences; old masters 

[275] 



ON" THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

were not in fashion then and you could not have 
sold one or given one away in the United States 
under any condition. (Laughter.) But having 
elected them as members of the Arts and Sciences, 
the Society immediately gave them a dinner; and 
the city of Ghent, untrue to that impartiality which 
should belong to a referee, offered, through its Bur- 
gomaster, as the toast, "Success to the Americans 
in this Negotiation." (Laughter.) After the cere- 
monies and the discussions were completed and the 
treaty fully agreed to and signed by all the com- 
missioners, then the American commissioners gave 
a dinner to the British commission. Now, there was 
this fortunate thing for the statesmen of that period. 
The British statesmen could not have praised Amer- 
icans and been elected to anything, and the Amer- 
ican statesmen, in the tone of public sentiment at 
that time, could never have praised Great Britain, 
with any hope of the future. But there were no 
cables and no reporters (laughter), and the result 
is that this chronicler, only in a letter, says that 
never were such compliments paid by the British 
to America or by the Americans to the British. 
(Laughter.) John Quincy Adams broke loose from 
the icy surroundings of his New England culture 
and Puritan blood and grew warm on the subject, 
and Henry Clay was never so mellifluous, never so 
eloquent, never so grand in his eulogiums of the 
country from which we all sprang. But they were 
not reported. 

There is a significance about that dinner; it was 
the first one which was ever held, in an international 
way, between Englishmen and Americans for the 
purpose of celebrating good will between the two 
peoples. Every dinner since then, and there has 
been a million of them, has been for that one pur- 

[ 276 ] 



ONE HUNDKED YEAES OF PEACE 

pose, and every speech that has been made since has 
been an echo of those speeches which were made a 
hundred years ago. (Applause.) 

According to our judgment, the present causes 
of threatened war, which is to join in its conflagra- 
tion all Europe and, possibly, all Asia, seem to be 
mighty small to us Americans, and I have no doubt 
mighty small to Englishmen, if I may use an optical 
illusion, with eyes which go around the globe. 

But, my friends, while we have been at peace for 
one hundred years, we have not always been on the 
most amicable, friendly and loving terms; and we 
would have been a mighty poor lot and unworthy of 
our ancestry if we had been. (Applause.) There 
must, among virile people, arise many questions of 
difference, and those questions will come to the 
breaking point. Now, we haven't fought, though we 
have had plenty of causes to fight about during those 
hundred years, not because either of us was afraid 
nor because either of us didn't sometimes long for 
a fight. We have both of us fought for a sentiment ; 
we have both of us fought on the drop of the hat ; 
we have both of us fought because one of our citi- 
zens was insulted somewhere; we have both of us 
fought where we had no earthly interest, except 
to protect or to save or to rescue a people who were 
unduly oppressed. (Great applause.) Now, we 
came near fighting over the Northeastern Boundary, 
but just as it came to the breaking point, the great- 
est intellect that we have ever had since Hamilton 
in American diplomacy or statesmanship, Webster, 
suggested the solution that Lord Ashburton ap- 
proved. We came near fighting when both sides 
claimed the whole Pacific coast. The English sug- 
gested the 49th parallel, and the Americans said 
"No"; then the Americans suggested the 49th 

[277] 



OX THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

parallel to the English, and the English said "No" ; 
others suggested several other parallels, and both 
sides said "No." Then Polk was elected on "54-40 
or fight." And after Polk was elected he studied 
geography a little, and then he said to the represent- 
atives of Great Britain: "I was elected on 54-40 
or fight, but how does 49 appear to you?" "Well," 
said the English Prime Minister, "it never occurred 
to me before, but it is just the same." (Laughter.) 
Then in later times, when differences came to the 
breaking point, they were settled by the genius of 
John Hay and the brilliant diplomacy of Lord 
Pauncefote. (Applause.) In our own recent recol- 
lection every obstacle in the way has been removed 
by the diplomacy of our own Senator, Elihu Root, 
and Ambassador James Bryce. (Applause.) 

I heard of a family which had two possessions 
it highly valued: one was a pet goat and the other 
a Persian rug a thousand years old, very fine and of 
brilliant color. The goat ate up the rug, and as a 
proper punishment was carried by the family 
down to the track and tied on his back to one of 
the rails. Then the executioners awaited his proper 
punishment, but as the express train rounded the 
curve, the goat took in the situation, coughed up 
the rug, flagged the train and saved his life and the 
family heirloom. (Laughter.) Now, it has so hap- 
pened that in every crisis during these one hundred 
years there were statesmen on both sides who could 
get into an agreement and flag the train of war be- 
fore the collision occurred. 

Now, if I may make — and sometimes we can do it 
yet — just the slightest kind of a classical allusion, 
it is said in history the gates of the Temple of Janus 
t were closed only four times in two thousand years, 
and then only for a few months at a time. Our 

[278] 



ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PEACE 

gates of the Temple of Janus, which holds the house- 
hold gods of English-speaking peoples, have been 
closed over a century. The gates are rusted and 
the metal has fused. There never can be an open 
gate again through which the armies can march, or 
the machines of war can go to the ports for dread- 
noughts of the navy. From now and forever more 
and especially when we have cemented peace by 
the celebration which is to come next year, peace 
will remain between the English-speaking peoples 
of the world, not only for their own advancement, 
but as an example for the civilization and humanity 
of the whole world. (Tremendous applause.) 



[279] 



Address at the One Hundredth Anniversary of 
the Incorporation of the Village of Ossining, 
State of New York, October 13, 1913. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: 

Twenty-seven years ago I was in Heidelberg. 
The five hundredth anniversary of the founding of 
its famous university had just been celebrated with 
impressive ceremonies. The Emperor, the Grand 
Duke, the high officials of the Empire and dis- 
tinguished professors and men of letters graced the 
occasion. For the visitor all that was left were the 
decorations in canvas and tinsel where in the ruins 
of the old castle had been recreated Germany of 
five centuries before. It was mainly the pomp, dis- 
play and majesty of war. It was knights in armor 
and feudal banners which had been carried vic- 
toriously on many a battlefield. The lesson of the 
hour, as conveyed by these remnants of the banquet, 
was not of peace or of learning, but of the might 
of embattled royalty and nobility maintaining with 
their retainers the prestige of their government, 
their class and their institutions. 

The centenary which we celebrate today in this 
simple way has an entirely different and more sig- 
nificant meaning. The pomp and circumstance and 
glories of war, the pageantry of feudalism and its 
class distinctions have no place here. The century 
which closes tonight has no equal in recorded his- 
tory of the benefits which it has bestowed upon hu- 
manity. Every class and condition in life have been 
equally the beneficiaries of its marvelous achieve- 

[280] 



ANNIVEESAET OF OSSINING 

ments. More has been accomplished in charity, 
bestowed without favor, in all-embracing philan- 
thropy, in invention and discovery, in conquests of 
the forces of nature and disciplining them to the 
service of man, and, in orderly liberty, than in all 
the cycles which have preceded. 

When the University of Heidelberg was founded, 
the learned and the unlearned still regarded with 
awe the seven wonders of the world, which were 
repeated everywhere in the following lines: 

"The pyramids first, which in Egypt were laid; 
Next Babylon's garden for Amytis made; 
Then Mausolos's tomb of affection and guilt; 
Fourth, the temple of Dian, in Ephesus built; 
The colossus of Rhodes, cast in brass, to the sun ; 
Sixth, Jupiter's statue, by Phidias done; 
The pharos of Egypt comes last, we are told, 
Or the palace of Cyrus, cemented with gold." 

But the wonders of this century are steam and 
its infinite application, unifying the world by rail- 
roads and steamships; electricity, belting the earth 
in instantaneous communication by the telegraph 
and cable and the wireless; the Suez Canal which 
united Western Europe with Asia, and the Panama 
Canal which will bind the North and South Amer- 
ican Hemispheres in mutual interdependence and 
immensely productive, political and commercial 
relations and make the Pacific Ocean the highway 
of nations; the inventions and discoveries which 
have multiplied power so that production can take 
care of increasing populations better than ever be- 
fore, and the advances in medicine and surgery 
which have found out the sources and removed the 
terrors of plagues, diseases and fractures which for 
ages have devastated and tortured mankind. Edu- 

[281] 



ON THE THKESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

cation has been popularized and brought within 
reach of all at the expense of the State with in- 
creasing liberty and opportunity. But the greatest 
wonder of all is the United States of America which 
has passed its one hundred and twenty-fifth year 
unchanged in its Constitution and institutions, a 
light for the guidance of other peoples and a home 
for millions who have been absorbed in its citizen- 
ship and assimilated to its ideas of liberty and 
civilization. 

The story of the organization of this municipal 
corporation would be incomplete without a picture 
of the background which educated and prepared the 
people of this town one hundred years ago for the 
formation of a representative government. The 
name of the town and of the village both came 
from Indian sources. While a large number of the 
municipalities of our State are named after the 
cities of Greece and Rome, or the gods of ancient 
mythology, this village and township happily pre- 
served the musical and appropriate nomenclature 
of its first inhabitants. The Six Nations of aborigi- 
nal Indians whose capital was in the Mohawk 
Valley, had the genius to discover, without outside 
aid or knowledge, the power of federated govern- 
ment. These tribes extended their power and ex- 
acted tribute from the extreme north down to the 
Gulf of Mexico and from the Atlantic Ocean to 
the Arctic Circle. The most powerful among these 
six tribes were the Mohicans whose habitat was 
along the Hudson. One family of them lived upon 
this spot, with their larger settlement Ossining and 
their smaller one Sing Sing. From these hills they 
saw the Half Moon anchor in Tappan Zee in 1609, 
and undoubtedly examined this strange craft with 
their canoes. They little dreamed that it was the 

[282] 



ANNIVERSARY OF OSSINING 

forerunner of a stronger race which was to occupy 
their lands and before which they were to disappear. 

Seventy-one years later Frederick Philipse, a 
successful New York merchant, was granted a patent 
by the British Crown permitting him to "freely buy" 
the district of country extending from Spuyten 
Duyvil Creek to the Croton River, where this great 
manor joined the manorial estate of the Van Cort- 
landts. When the Revolutionary War broke out the 
descendant of this Philipse cast his lot with the 
British while Van Cortlancit remained faithful to 
the patriot cause. At the close of the war the 
Philipse family fled to England. The estate was 
confiscated and purchased mainly by the tenants. 
Philipse purchased the property from the Indians 
for a miscellaneous and not very large collection of 
knives, guns, powder, lead, cloth, axes, wampum, 
and probably most attractive, two ankers of rum, 
an anker containing twelve gallons. The Indian 
had thus early acquired a taste for fire-water, which, 
more than the guns of the enemy, led to his ex- 
termination. And yet, at the sale of the confiscated 
estate in 1784, what now constitutes nearly the 
whole of northern Westchester, except the northern 
part of Cortlandt town, brought only forty-three 
thousand dollars. 

This town was in the midst of what is famous in 
the story of the Revolutionary struggle as the neu- 
tral ground. The British Army was encamped in 
New York ; the American Army at Peekskill and the 
hills north, and this intermediate territory was raided 
by the scouting and foraging parties of both armies, 
but, worst of all, was subject to plundering bands 
of banditti, known as cowboys or skinners who mas- 
queraded, sometimes as loyalists and sometimes as 
revolutionists, but were always thieves. 

[283] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OP EIGHTY 

Within a few miles of here Andre was captured by 
Paulding, Williams and Van Wart. Had he suc- 
ceeded in reaching New York with the papers in 
his possession, West Point would have fallen, the 
country would have been divided by the Hudson 
River and independence postponed for an indefinite 
period. 

A most interesting book could be written on the 
trifling incidents which have led to mighty results. 
Two farmers' boys, one a white man and the other 
a negro, Sherwood and Peterson, were making cider 
on the Frost Estate about four miles north from 
this spot. They saw a boat put off from the Vulture 
which had brought Andre up to the meeting with 
Arnold, and saying, "Let's go down and take a shot 
at the Britishers," they hid in the bushes and fired 
at the boat with their flintlock muskets. A sailor 
was wounded and the boat returned to the British 
sloop of war. The noise of the firing attracted the 
attention of Colonel Livingston who, with his com- 
mand, was stationed at Verplanck's Point. He ap- 
plied for a large gun which Arnold refused. Then 
he sent a four-pounder, which was his best artillery 
to Teller's Point, which encloses your harbor, and 
that little gun compelled the sloop of war to raise 
anchor and drop down the Hudson. The musket 
shots of the two farmer's boys and the four-pounder 
on Teller's Point forced the land journey of Major 
Andre in an effort to regain his own lines, and then 
followed his capture, the flight of Arnold, the ex- 
posure of the plot and the salvation of the country. 

There is another lesson in the tragedy of Andre, 
and that is, a military officer should always obey 
orders, and all persons in times of peril should find 
out about others without revealing themselves. 
General Clinton's orders to Andre were, not to go 

[284] 



ANNTVERSAKY OF OSSINING 

within the American Lines, not to conceal his 
uniform, not to carry any papers, but his 
adventurous spirit got the better of his written 
instructions and he was captured. 

Paulding was a prisoner of war who had escaped 
to the home of a sympathizer near the prison. He 
purchased for him an old British uniform. When 
he was stopped, Andre saw the uniform, supposed 
it was one of his own people and betrayed his posi- 
tion as a British officer. Paulding said afterward 
that if Andre had said nothing except exhibit the 
pass which he had from General Arnold he would 
have let him go. 

So little is known of the subsequent history of 
Benedict Arnold, except in a general way, that 
greater detail might appropriately be put on record 
on this occasion. The story is one of tragedy, of 
the loyal devotion of a devoted woman to a hus- 
band who was unworthy of her affection. He died 
without revealing whether she ever fully under* 
stood the infamy of his act. Arnold was an able, 
daring and tempestuous character without moral 
principle or self-control. Washington made him 
the military commander of Philadelphia because his 
wound, received at Saratoga, unfitted him for the 
field. His extravagances led to a court martial. 
The court martial condemned him. Washington 
could not do otherwise than approve the findings 
of the court martial, and for that Arnold flew into 
a rage and opened communications with the British 
Commander. He was a military genius. He saw 
that West Point was the key to the situation, that 
there he could inflict the most telling blow and earn 
his reward. He asked for this command which 
Washington, who had unimpaired confidence in 
him, readily granted. 

[ 285 ] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

The last act of the unfortunate. Major Andre be- 
fore the British Army evacuated Philadelphia was 
to organize a tournament in which each knight had 
his lady, and his was the beautiful Peggy Shippen. 
The first thing that happened to General Arnold 
after he assumed command of Philadelphia was to 
meet Peggy Shippen and fall madly in love with 
her. The first act of Arnold when he had safely 
reached the Vulture was to write to General Wash- 
ington begging him to be merciful to his wife, this 
same Peggy Shippen. 

The character of Washington comes into relief 
in two instances of this period. While he made 
every effort to capture Arnold and to exchange 
Andre for him, yet with a tender and fatherly care 
he shielded Mrs. Arnold, had her conveyed in safety 
to her father in Philadelphia, and subsequently per- 
mitted her to pass through the lines to join her 
husband in New York. The second was old General 
Putnam, who always self-reliant, egotistic and 
wrong-headed, had disobeyed an order. Washing- 
ton's reprimand meant discipline and at the same 
time to save as far as possible the feelings of the 
old veteran, in writing a reproof he said: "My dear 
General, if anything goes wrong from my order, the 
blame is mine not yours." 

Arnold, with his wife and two children at the 
close of the war went over on the same ship with 
Cornwallis. He and his wife were received with the 
greatest attention by the King and Queen, but so- 
ciety refused to recognize them. They were at 
every court function, and King George and Queen 
Charlotte put themselves out of the way to show 
them courtesy, but not one else went near them 
or received them. Life was a solitude in their 
home and no doors were opened to them. We have 

[286] 



ANNIVERSARY OF OSSINING 

all felt in watching the doings of what is called so- 
ciety everywhere, whether at the Capitol or in the 
village, that it is governed by singular impulses 
in its recognition or rejection of new-comers. 

The Earl of Lauderdale made a speech in Parlia- 
ment attacking the Duke of Richmond, in which 
he said that he did not know of any instance of 
political apostasy equal to the Duke of Richmond's 
except General Arnold's, and that as the intended 
encampment was designed to overawe the Kingdom 
and the metropolis in particular and prevent a re- 
form in Parliament, the Duke of Richmond was the 
most popular commander to command it, General 
Arnold being struck off the list. Arnold immediately 
challenged the Earl. He selected Lord Hawke as 
his second, while the Earl of Lauderdale chose the 
famous statesman Charles James Fox. They were 
to fire simultaneously. Arnold missed. The Earl 
refused to fire on the ground that he had no com- 
plaint against the General. Arnold sent for Fox, 
and said: "Tell your principal that unless he fires 
I will so insult him that he cannot help it or be 
disgraced," whereupon Lauderdale said he would 
apologize. The apology was accepted and Lauder- 
dale then called upon Mrs. Arnold and apologized 
to her. Instantly society changed towards the fam- 
ily. The street was filled with carriages, coats of 
arms emblazoned on their panels, cards showered 
in from the most eminent, and invitations were ex- 
tended to functions in town and great houses in the 
country. The devoted wife wrote to her father 
as to her condition pending the duel : "What I suf- 
fered for near a week cannot be described. The 
suppression of my feelings lest I should unman the 
General almost proved too much for me, and for 
some hours my reason was despaired of." 

[287] 



ON THE THEESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

Arnold who was anything but a good business 
man speedily lost the thirty thousand dollars he had 
received for his betrayal. Every venture and every 
speculation proved unfortunate. Queen Charlotte 
had settled on their arrival upon Peggy a pension 
of five hundred pounds a year and one hundred 
pounds for each child. This had to support them 
during the nearly twenty years before Arnold died. 
Peggy's letters to her father are most pathetic in 
describing, as the children came along, how increas- 
ingly difficult it was to "keep up appearances." 

Arnold disappears from the historic stage with 
his famous meeting with Talleyrand at Falmouth 
on his last journey to the West Indies. Talleyrand 
was at the same inn. He had been expelled from 
France, England no longer wanted him and he was 
on his way to America. Learning that a distin- 
guished American General was in the hotel, he in- 
troduced himself, asked many questions which 
Arnold curtly and evasively answered. Talleyrand, 
however, was too great a diplomatist to be put off 
by bad manners even from a man who seemed to 
be so unhappy as Arnold, so he asked for letters 
of introduction to people in the United States who 
might be useful to him. "No," said the stranger, 
"that I cannot do. I am perhaps the only Ameri- 
can who cannot give you letters to his own country. 
The ties which bound me are broken. I can never 
go back. I am Benedict Arnold." With that Ar- 
nold, with bowed head, quitted the room. 

One of the most pathetic illustrations and inher- 
itance for vengeance for treason, and its unfor- 
getfulness and reluctance to forgive, was illustrated 
in a letter written by Mr. Shippen, then Chief Jus- 
tice of Pennsylvania, to his daughter, Mrs. Arnold, 
many years after she had settled in London. She 

[288] 



ANNIVERSARY OF OSSINING 

had asked him if after this long absence she might 
not visit her old home and put her sons at an Amer- 
ican school. The Chief Justice answered, "You had 
better not come, because the boys at school will make 
your children very uncomfortable." 

The shadow of the disgrace of their father fol- 
lowed the children. They were fine boys and a 
beautiful girl resembling her mother, and did their 
best. Of course, the British Government aided 
them to positions. The eldest went to India and 
became distinguished as a civilian. George and 
James entered the military service and were both 
killed in the Peninsular War. At the storming of 
Surinam a forlorn hope was to be led against the 
fort. James at once applied to the Colonel for 
permission to lead it because he said "he knew that 
his father was held a failure at his duty and he de- 
sired to do the best he could to redeem his name." 
His wish was granted, the fort was taken, but James 
was unharmed. Years later in the wars against 
Napoleon he died as he had wished, a soldier's death 
in Spain. 

It is the foible of every generation to think their 
problems more serious than those which were pre- 
sented to the people of any other period. We are 
entering upon an industrial experiment amid the 
jubilant shouts of the authors of the new tariff, and 
are facing a currency crisis under the equally jubi- 
lant prophesies of the victors. According to our 
standards, we are happy or unhappy, hopeful or 
hopeless. Our brilliant, most original and most dis- 
tinguished citizen, Colonel Roosevelt sails away, 
firing a broadside which echoes over the land on 
behalf of what he calls reforms and those who dis- 
agree with him call revolution. But we are living 
in calm political and social conditions so great that 

[289] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

they cannot be compared with the troublous times 
which existed when this village was organized on 
October 13, 1813. The bitterness of the Revolu- 
tionary War was still acute. The memories of out- 
rages committed in this neutral ground by neigh- 
bors upon neighbors were still fresh. Paulding, 
Williams and Van Wart, the captors of Andre, were 
alive. Paulding died five years later and was bur- 
ied in the old Van Cortlandtville Cemetery at 
Peekskill. Isaac Van Wart died ten years later, 
and was buried in the old Greenburg Churchyard 
near Elmsford. Daniel Williams died in Schoharie 
County eighteen years later, and was buried in the 
old stone fort at Schoharie Court House. 

The general upheaval in National politics in 1813 
and 1814 made Henry Clay Speaker of the House 
of Representatives, and brought Daniel Webster 
and John C. Calhoun into public life as Members 
of Congress. These three statesmen became the 
famed triumvirate who moulded and controlled 
the domestic and foreign policies of the United 
States for the next forty years. 

An illustration of the survival of the bitterness 
of those times, even in another generation, is the 
advice given to me by my father when I com- 
menced the practice of the law in this county in 
1858. His father had been a soldier in the Revolu- 
tionary Army, and his grandfather had spent the 
family patrimony in raising a company for the same 
army. He named five families all well-known in 
Westchester, and said, "My son, never have any 
financial dealings with those people. Never ac- 
cept one of them as a client. Never believe one of 
them as a witness. If they appear on a jury, chal- 
lenge them peremptorily, for their fathers were 
Tories or Skinners in the Revolution." 

[290] 



ANNIVEKSAKY OF OSSINING 

But in 1813, Patriots, Tories and Skinners were 
among the population of Ossining. They all joined 
in the formation of this corporation. Beyond these 
borders the world was in agitation and trouble to 
an almost unparalleled degree. Napoleon's inva- 
sion of Russia had been a failure, and his army of 
a million of men annihilated. The allies were 
marching upon Paris and his abdication and re- 
tirement to Elba were imminent. War had been 
declared against Great Britain by Madison, and 
there were no obstructions in the way of forts or 
mines or modern appliances to prevent the British 
fleets coming up the Hudson, or going, as they did, 
up the Potomac. Political partisanship was never 
more intense. The leaders of the combatants were 
most picturesque figures in our State history. Daniel 
D. Tompkins, a native of Scarsdale, a few miles east 
of here, twice Governor of the State and Vice-Presi- 
dent of the United States, leading the one side, and 
DeWitt Clinton the other. Tompkins raised forty 
thousand men for the defense of New York's fron- 
tier, and to secure the money for the purpose 
pledged his own property and indorsed the notes 
of the State. Clinton represented the anti-war 
party and most of the leading citizens of our 
County sympathized with him and joined in the 
great meeting in New York to protest. The bit- 
terness against Great Britain growing out of the 
Revolutionary War was still intense, as was also 
the sympathy and friendship for France. Our 
people were almost unanimously with Napoleon in 
his tremendous conflict, though under his embar- 
goes and orders twice as many ships were seized and 
destroyed, and twice as much property sold or 
burned as by the English, nevertheless we were hot- 
footed for war with England, while we forgave 

[291] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

Napoleon. Posterity, however, justifies that war. 
With our race no man can hope for popularity in 
public life who opposes a war after it has begun. 
The most eminent men in New England and the 
most eminent sons of Massachusetts and Connecti- 
cut were driven into obscurity because they were 
members of the Hartford Convention which was a 
protest against the continuance of the struggle and 
a demand for peace. Madison received, as against 
DeWitt Clinton, the votes of nearly two-thirds of 
the electoral college because he was pledged to de- 
clare war. Clinton resigned from the United States 
Senate to become Mayor of New York. At that 
time the Chief Magistracy of our metropolis was 
regarded as the higher honor. Times have changed. 
The Mayor of New York had almost unlimited 
powers. He was Chief Magistrate at the head of 
every department, and possessed judicial functions. 
He could hold any other office, for Clinton was at 
the same time Lieutenant Governor of the State. 

It was about the time of the formation of this 
village corporation that DeWitt Clinton, having 
personally made the surveys, started the project 
of the Erie Canal. Tompkins arrayed himself on 
the other side, and the question became political. 
Clinton was driven from public life, but in 1817 re- 
turned as Governor of the State, and carried his 
great project into execution. He was driven again 
from public life, but the people called him once 
more to the Chief Magistracy, when he completed 
the work. He had the good fortune, which comes 
to few originators, of participating in the triumph 
of its completion. He carried the waters of Lake 
Erie through the canal to the Hudson, and down 
the Hudson until he had poured them into the At- 
lantic Ocean. He gave to his State the highway 

[292] 



ANNIVERSARY OF OSSINING 

to the West, which was the outlet for an interior 
empire that created States, cities, villages and 
industries, made the City of New York the me- 
tropolis of the Western Hemisphere, and his State 
the Empire State of the Union. 

An echo of those distant times which shows how 
history often repeats itself were these lines of a 
song that was sung before Clinton was elected: 

"Oh a ditch he would dig from the lakes to the sea, 
The eighth of the world's matchless wonders to be. 
Good land, how absurd! But why should you grin? 
It will do to bury this mad author within." 

After his election his friends sang this song : 

"DeWitt Clinton is dead, St. Tammany said, 

"And all the papooses with laughter were weeping. 
But Clinton arose and confounded his foes, 
The cunning old fox had only been sleeping." 

It is the glory of Daniel D. Tompkins that in co- 
operation with that most distinguished citizen of 
our County of his time, Chief Justice John Jay, he 
passed the law under which, giving ten years to the 
owners to adjust themselves to the new conditions, 
slavery should be abolished in the State of New 
York. 

According to some of our political philosophers, 
your fathers sadly misunderstood the true principles 
of democracy. They had been living and exercis- 
ing here for a generation pure democracy of which 
we hear so much. They had that ideal of direct 
government, the town meeting, and yet by a unani- 
mous vote they decided to establish representative 
government. Six years before Fulton's invention, 
the first steamboat, the Clermont, had carried pas- 
sengers from New York to Albany and return, and 

[293] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

the success of the undertaking had revolutionized 
the transportation system upon the Hudson River. 
The farming country back to the Connecticut line 
was pouring in here with its products to be carried 
to New York, and the stores were securing from the 
city the supplies for this rural population. Docks 
and piers and wharves were required. Streets were 
to be laid out with some degree of uniformity. 
Public improvements were to be planned. An edu- 
cational system was to be adopted. Mount Plea- 
sant Academy, one of the first, and afterward one 
of the most famous in the State, was built the next 
year. From this beginning came other institutions 
of learning, until Ossining had a nation-wide repu- 
tation for the number and excellence of its schools. 
Those old-fashioned people decided that the 
preacher and the merchant, the lawyer and the 
farmer, the doctor and the mechanic, all intent 
upon earning a living and their energies absorbed 
in their own career, could not, by assembling in the 
public square and in open meeting, decide on the 
moment upon the harmonious creation and execu- 
tion of all these enterprises. So they resolved to 
form the corporation of this village and delegate 
to their chosen representatives, the President, the 
Board of Trustees, the Highway Commissioner, the 
Police, the Justice of the Peace, the carrying out of 
their will. The prosperity of this town from that 
day to this, the fact that there has never been a 
single voice raised to return to the old town meet- 
ing system, is the emphatic verdict of one hundred 
years of experience for representative government. 
Permit me to tell of two experiences of my own 
connected with your village. About fifty years ago 
I delivered an address before the Westchester 
County Bible Society. Among those in attendance 

[294] 



ANNIVERSARY OF OSSINING 

was the Reverend Doctor Phraner, for a half cen- 
tury pastor of one of your churches, and who passed 
away recently venerable and universally respected 
in his ninety-odd years of age. Some time after 
the meeting of the Bible Society he called upon 
me at my home in Peekskill and suggested that as a 
young lawyer I should move to Sing Sing and make 
it my home. The reason he gave was that the local 
lawyers were a bad lot. I knew those local lawyers, 
and several of them, especially the late Francis 
Larkin, were very able and very honorable members 
of the bar. 

When I first ran for the Lower House of our New 
York Legislature fifty-two years ago, I was told 
that unless I secured the support of one of your 
most active citizens, an eccentric and successful 
man, I could not be elected. I addressed a meeting 
in the public square, and afterward this gentleman 
insisted upon adjourning to the American House 
for refreshments. At that time temperance was 
unknown. It was an insult to refuse a drink. Most 
of the public men whom I met in the Legislature 
died from alcoholism. I had very decided notions 
for my own future on this question, but at the same 
time I could not afford to offend this prominent 
politician. So I arranged with the bartender to 
give me mint juleps, innocent of anything but water 
and mint, while my host indulged in his favorite 
whiskey. At midnight I had defied microbes and 
germs by swallowing about a gallon of Sing Sing 
water, and he about the same quantity of Sing Sing 
whiskey. He stumped the district afterward for 
me both times I ran, declaring everywhere that I 
had a great future before me because I was a sec- 
ond Daniel Webster and had the strongest head in 
the State of New York. 

[295] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

The inspiration of the young people of West- 
chester in every generation has been the distin- 
guished men who have honored its history. Of the 
Revolutionary period few in our country were as 
eminent as John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the 
United States, and the diplomat who negotiated 
our first treaty with Great Britain which secured 
to our country inestimable benefits, and the pictur- 
esque Gouverneur Morris, soldier, diplomat, man of 
letters and wit, and the friend of Washington. It 
was in his little cottage at Fordham that Edgar 
Allan Poe wrote "Annabel Lee" and "The Bells." 
Near him Rodman Drake sang of the flag and its 
significance, and Woodworth gave to the world that 
never-to-be-forgotten ballad "The Old Oaken 
Bucket." Fenimore Cooper, at his home in Mamar- 
oneck, failed in his first essay in literature, but 
while visiting the venerable John Jay at his home 
in Bedford he heard the story of Enoch Crosby, the 
spy of the Revolution. No more resourceful, dar- 
ing and courageous gatherer of secret information 
at daily peril of his life from the officers of both 
armies ever lived than Enoch Crosby. He had the 
entire confidence of General Washington, but neces- 
sarily could not have that of others, and was often 
in more danger that he would be caught with the 
loyalists whom he had betrayed from our own 
troops than from the enemy. He enlisted in the 
Continental Army about the time of the Battle of 
Lexington, and filed with Washington only one re- 
quest when he undertook the dangerous task of 
a spy, that if caught and executed his name should 
be vindicated. His exploits were so remarkable, 
his escapes so marvelous, his accomplishments so 
miraculous that it only needed the touch of genius 
to picture the facts to make a stoiy of absorbing 

[296] 



ANNIVERSARY OF OSSINING 

interest. James Fenimore Cooper's genius was 
equal to the task. The "Spy" made his reputation 
immediately, and he became one of the foremost of 
American authors. Cooper, you remember, calls 
Crosby in the novel Harvey Birch. Crosby resided 
in the village of Southeast, and his son lived and 
died at Mount Kisco. 

Washington Irving lived for thirty years your 
neighbor at Sunnyside, and there wrote his immor- 
tal life of General Washington. The suggestion and 
the inspiration came because he had never forgot- 
ten that as a little boy Washington had placed his 
hand on his head with a cheerful salute, and that 
at Sunnyside and at Wolfert's Roost he was sur- 
rounded by the atmosphere of Washington's 
achievements. 

Close by was White Plains, Washington's first 
great battle, and Dobb's Ferry, where Washington 
and Rochambeau met and organized the Yorktown 
campaign which ended the war, and where the army 
encamped at the close of the war prior to its trium- 
phal entry into New York upon its evacuation by 
the British. 

Above him was Verplanck's Point, where Wash- 
ington and Rochambeau, after the declaration of 
peace, gave a final review of their two armies, and 
Rochambeau, noting the wonderful improvement 
of the American troops since he first saw them, said 
to Washington, "Your army looks like an army of 
Prussians," at that time the highest compliment a 
military man could convey, for it meant the vet- 
erans of Frederick the Great. 

Irving had redeemed American literature from 
the reproach of the Edinburgh reviewer contained 
in the question, "Who reads an American book?" 
But he did more for our neighborhood in peopling 

[297] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

its shores by the legend of Sleepy Hollow, and the 
sleep of Rip Van Winkle, and the Voyages of the 
Dutch Navigators on the Hudson, so that while 
we have not the legends of the Rhine, we have 
beautiful tales of love, adventure, domestic felicity 
and infelicity, with some of the mysterious and the 
supernatural, to add to the incomparable physical 
beauties of our Hudson River. 

Among the successful men of this town were 
Admiral Worden who, in command of the Monitor 
in the battle of Hampton Roads, ended the naval 
power of the Confederacy; Darius Ogden Mills, 
who became one of the founders of the State of 
California, and John T. Hoffman, Governor of our 
State. 

An incident too trivial to find a place in the pages 
of the sober histories is nevertheless a tradition of 
sufficient local interest to be recorded. The Count 
de Rochambeau, when he received orders from 
home to take his army to Newport and embark for 
the West Indies, was encamped on the Crumpond 
Road, a few miles to the north. As he was mounted 
and about to march, surrounded by his brilliant 
staff, and followed by his army of six thousand vet- 
erans, a constable stepped up and said, "Sir, you 
are under arrest." "What for?" said the astonished 
hero of many battlefields in Europe and of glorious 
achievements in America. "Because," said the con- 
stable, "your soldiers have used an orchard for 
firewood, and the owner has sworn out a warrant 
against you as an absconding debtor." The monu- 
mental and colossal audacity of the situation 
touched the French humor of the Count and he in- 
quired how great was the demand. The answer was 
"Three thousand dollars in gold," which was. more 
than an entire farm was worth in that neighbor- 

[298] 



ANNlYERSAKY OF OSSINING 

hood at that period, when it took one thousand dol- 
lars of Continental currency to buy a pair of boots. 
However, the Count left a thousand dollars, the 
issue to be decided by the court, and the damage 
was ultimately assessed by the man's neighbors 
at four hundred dollars. 

When de Tocqueville who, next to James Bryce, 
is the only foreigner who ever understood and elo- 
quently wrote about our institutions, visited Amer- 
ica, he came here. Standing on the heights in the 
rear of the village, and gazing upon the Hudson, he 
said, "I must except the Bay of Naples because of 
the opinion of the civilized world, but with that 
exception the world has no such scenery." 

It was a happy incident and a wonderful fore- 
sight which located your village on the site of this 
encampment of the Mohican Indians. We who 
were born along this river may travel all over the 
world, may admit the beauty or the grandeur of 
other spots famed for their picturesqueness and 
beauty, but we return to the Hudson convinced 
that it has no superior, and doubtful if it has any 
equal. The four-pounder which from Teller's Point 
was so instrumental in saving American independ- 
ence has on every Fourth of July from the square 
in your village been an added inspiration to pa- 
triotism and good citizenship. It sent forth at 
the beginning of the Civil War as gallant a com- 
pany as fought on either side during that memor- 
able struggle. The year after the formation of the 
corporation of your village the War of 1812 be- 
tween the United States and Great Britain was 
brought to a close by the Treaty of Ghent. Next 
year will be celebrated one hundred years of peace 
between the mother country and ours. In the 
meantime these two English-speaking peoples have 

[299] 



ON" THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

grown to a dominant influence in the affairs of the 
world and in the advancement of its civilization 
and liberties. This one hundred years of peace has 
been of benefits so incalculable that they can only 
be imagined, they cannot be adequately portrayed. 
You, in common with all the world in your century 
so coincident with this one hundred years of peace, 
have been conspicuously the participants of its 
blessings. I devoutly hope that continuing pros- 
perity may mark each succeeding one hundredth 
birthday of your town, and that the five hundredth 
may have a civic celebration which will be of as 
great general interest to our country as the five hun- 
dredth of Heidelberg was to Germany. 



[300] 



Speech at the Dinner given by the Lotos Club, 
October 25, 1913, to His Serene Highness, 
Prince Albert of Monaco. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: 

For about half a century this club has been en- 
tertaining men of eminence in every department of 
endeavor. It loves to decorate achievement. Those 
distinguished in literature, in journalism, in art 
upon the dramatic and the lyric stage, by inven- 
tion or discovery, have received our welcome, and 
also the accidents of politics, like Presidents and 
Governors. 

This is the first time that we have been honored 
by the presence of a reigning sovereign. It is not on 
account of his hereditary rank that we are glad 
to see him, but because he is much more than a 
reigning sovereign — a scientist of world-wide fame 
and an inventor and discoverer. The learned 
societies of many capitals have paid him high com- 
pliments, elected him to their memberships. As a 
yachtsman he appeals to our sporting sense. Our 
people gained a fondness for the sea when one hun- 
dred men, women and children braved its dangers 
and sought its safety on the Mayflower of seventy 
tons in 1620. True to their ideals, they have 
reached in less than three hundred years over 
ninety millions, the conquests of a continent and one 
of the world powers of the globe. This mastery of 
the sea was with John Paul Jones, the founder of our 
Navy, and subsequently with our clipper ships which 
were the despair of maritime nations. When unwise 

[301] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OP EIGHTY 

partisan legislation took our mercantile marine off 
the ocean and banished our flag from the ports of the 
world, our sporting spirit kept alive the spirit of 
the seas through our yachts, bringing over in their 
first contest the International Cup and keeping it 
since against all competitors. 

Still, it is not as a yachtsman that we welcome 
the Prince. It is because of the wonderful things 
he does with his yacht. Poets have sung through all 
the ages of the music of the spheres. It became a 
fixed tradition that the myriad stars in the Milky 
Way, and other myriad stars in other milky ways, 
again and again filling the immeasurable universe, 
were held in their places as suns, and revolving in 
their orbits, because of the music of the spheres. 

But now the American admiral in midocean lifts 
his cap as there comes from the air the strain of 
"The Star Spangled Banner"; the English admiral 
bares his head as there comes to him the music of 
"God Save the King," while the German pays his 
tribute to "The Watch on the Rhine." There, in 
calm or in storm, these patriotic airs come to 
those naval officers' ears from an invisible choir. 
We cannot explore, we are unable to explain, the 
mastery of the music of the spheres, but these na- 
tional anthems, flowing on the waves of the air, 
are sent forth by an invention of the Prince from 
the deck of his yacht through a wireless telephone. 
Statesmen of all countries, while preaching peace, 
are working with feverish haste to enlarge the size 
and increase the number of their dreadnoughts and 
to stimulate inventive genius to discover new ele- 
ments of destruction. Perhaps there may be here a 
potent agency for universal peace. It may be that 
with these great fleets listening to the invisible 
choir, giving them interchangeably each other's in- 

[302] 



TRIBUTE TO PRINCE ALBERT OF MONACO 

spiration of their national anthems, that the har- 
mony which conquers wild beasts and leads them 
to follow the player, may first temper and then allay 
the passions for war. 

The wireless machinery of the Prince's yacht is 
so powerful that it keeps him always in touch with 
one continent or the other. His own inventive 
mind has added many things to its usefulness. We 
live in an age of wonders. They are so common 
that they have ceased either to excite our admira- 
tion or stir our blood. It is a rare event that makes 
men or women now rise up and take notice, but the 
records of time may be searched and nowhere can 
be found any event which so touches the human 
heart and so stirs the imagination as the rescue 
of the passengers of the unfortunate Voltumo. But 
for the wireless, it would have been another of those 
tragedies of the sea which are never accounted for 
and whose victims are never heard from. The hero 
of the hour is the wireless operator who, without 
exception, stands by his post until the last moment, 
and, with the captain, is the last to leave the ship. 
The cries of seven hundred human beings concen- 
trated in these electric waves went north, south, 
east and west. They reached the Englishman, one 
hundred miles distant, and the German, one hun- 
dred and twenty-five, and the Frenchman, one 
hundred and fifty, and with doubled speed all al- 
tered their courses and flew to the rescue. The oil 
tank steamer, also illustrating modern invention, 
arrived to throw upon the mountain waves the 
calming influence of oil. 

When future generations look back to this age, 
this instance will stand out conspicuously among 
its many marvels, and when the heroes of this age 
take their niches in the temple of fame, one of the 

[303] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

highest will be occupied by the statue of Marconi. 
All the scientific talent of the Middle Ages was 
devoted to turning the baser metals into gold. 
Alchemy, with its one purpose to discover gold, was 
the pursuit and the bane of genius. This age has 
learned much easier methods of securing gold. It 
is not by finding it in the results of the retort and 
the laboratory, nor in the hazards and accidents 
of gold mining, but it is by possessing that talent 
for organization which controls the necessaries of 
life. The Trusts have done much to accumulate 
gold for a few, but there arises now and then a 
special master of men and of markets who, with no 
other advantages than are possessed by his neigh- 
bors, becomes supreme by the possession of the 
talent for acquisition of the precious metal. A con- 
spicuous example came to our people and to the 
world by the death of the merchant Altman. With 
the same tools, under the same laws, and with equal 
opportunities of his neighbors and competitors dur- 
ing his life, he nevertheless leaves his vast busi- 
ness to those who have been his associates, and to 
the city in which he had his opportunity a priceless 
gift of unequaled and unsurpassed works of art for 
the education of succeeding generations until the end 
of time. 

The scientific mind of our day, however, is de- 
voted entirely to the benefit and uplifting of the 
human race. It abandons the fields for gain and 
enters the laboratories in the research work which 
is minimizing the dangers of disease and extirpat- 
ing the perils of plagues. It is risking life in ad- 
venture to probe the secrets and reduce still further 
to the service of mankind the sea and the air. It 
is in this field that our guest has won his chief dis- 
tinction. His yacht is his home, a pleasure boat 

[304] 



TRIBUTE TO PRINCE ALBERT OF MONACO 

and a laboratory. He has found things about cur- 
rents and tides which are of great value to the navi- 
gator. He has dropped his search line five miles 
into the ocean, and biologists in all countries have 
learned by his discoveries. He has found that there 
are living creatures in these vast depths which bear 
a pressure of the water above them beyond the 
weight of the Washington Monument or of West- 
minster Abbey. They relieve this easily borne 
pressure for new fields by rising gradually until a 
million tons becomes a thousand, and a thousand 
becomes a hundred, then there is no pressure at all 
on the surface. But the explorations from the 
yacht have demonstrated that when these living 
organisms are pulled suddenly to the surface they 
die from the want of pressure. That is a brand-new 
discovery. Our graveyards are filled with those 
who die from too much pressure. Pressure on the 
brain from overwork, pressure upon overloaded 
stomachs, pressure upon overcharged kidneys, pres- 
sure from worry and anxiety and from overstrained 
nerves keep the undertaker busy and furnish the 
grave digger with his living. So, it is a pleasure to 
learn that there are living things in this world who 
die for want of pressure. The example seems to 
enforce the old-fashioned lesson of moderation; not 
too much pressure to kill, not too little to take 
away ambition, but just enough pressure for suc- 
cess and longevity. 

This lengthened line has contributed another 
blow to our most cherished beliefs. This fine of the 
poet has always been a favorite : "Full many a gem 
of purest ray serene, the dark unfathomed caves of 
ocean bear." The Prince has fathomed those caves. 
There are no gems of purest ray there. This beau- 
tiful and hopeful creation of the imagination takes 

[305] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

its place under practical examination with the sil- 
ver lining of the clouds. We all know the story 
of the two busted speculators who used their last 
money to buy a balloon, equipped it with the 
proper instruments and rose above the clouds to 
corner the silver. 

The people are always interested in the sports of 
their rulers. They delight to know that the King, or 
the Prince, or the President plays. They are mighty 
curious to know how he does it. The race course is 
said to be the sport of kings, and so it is. Every 
crowned head in Europe goes with his family to the 
races, and if you are in Paris on a certain day in 
June, you will see the President of the Republic in 
his State coach, with outriders and an escort of 
cavalry, going on Sunday morning to the Grand 
Prix. The great race of England is the Derby. 
But our Presidents cannot indulge in this sport of 
kings as the French Presidents because the only of- 
ficial who is conspicuous upon our race course is the 
sheriff. King Edward won the Derby. King 
George is the best shot on the grouse moors in 
Great Britain. He escapes from appeals which may 
be made to him from David Lloyd George, John 
Redmond or Sir Edward Carson to use or not to 
use the veto power by rejoicing in his prowess in 
phenomenal bags of birds. The Czar and the Kaiser 
chase the deer through the forests, while the King 
of Italy, reviving as he is constantly doing with 
the applause of his people the prestige and power 
of ancient Rome, renews the life in his Virgil and 
Horace, by chasing the wild boar over the hills. 

The only sport which seems to be reserved for 
our Presidents is golf. Having watched them at 
golf, I think I see the reason for it. When the 
President, after an hour of unsuccessful struggle 

[306] 



TRIBUTE TO PRINCE ALBERT OF MONACO 

with the Senators and Members of Congress of hia 
party to make them follow his lead, is stripped 
for the fray and has the weapon in his hand and 
sees the little ball on the ground, that ball grows 
to the size of a Senator. When he swats it, he takes 
a mental satisfaction in the discipline. When he 
puts it in the hole, he says, "Mr. Senator from New 
York, I reckon you will now support my currency 
suggestions." 

Pessimists are always despairing of the Republic. 
There is, however, no reason for this. We have both 
patriots among our people who are generally right 
though sometimes mistaken and efficient public 
servants. An incident, which occurred to a friend 
of mine when he recently landed from Europe, 
proves this efficiency. He brought with him a 
large number of pheasants he had shot in England. 
As game birds, they are admissible under the law; 
as plumage, prohibited by the new tariff. The 
genius of the inspectors was equal to the occasion. 
They sat down on the dock, plucked the feathers, 
threw them into the harbor and then delivered the 
game. 

The late Governor Woodruff was a member of 
this club. He was one of the most genial, most 
lovable and most capable men in either social or 
political life. Truly of him it may be said, "None 
knew him but to love him." He had a camp in the 
Adirondaeks, called "Kill Kare." He loved to en- 
tertain statesmen there by the score. At the other 
end of the lake he had two bears chained to a rock. 
They were trained to entertain the statesmen. He 
knew that to kill a bear was a distinction highly 
prized by a Governor. These bears were trained 
so that, with their acute wild hearing and sight, the 
moment the gun flashed they dropped. I think 

[307] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OE EIGHTY 

they survived several years, contributing to the 
hunting stories of the amateur sportsmen. 

I reject with scorn the suggestion that Buffalo 
Bill had for his distinguished guest, the Prince, a 
trained grizzly bear. I am sure that the Prince was 
so fine a sportsman that his unerring aim brought 
down his grizzly. 

Well, gentlemen, we hope that this sportsman, 
scientist, inventor, explorer, discoverer and true 
democrat, will continue his beneficent career and 
round out, as long as he wishes, life after his cen- 
tury has closed. 



[308] 



Speech at the Dinner by the Lotos Club to Mr. 
Howard Elliott, Chairman of the Board of 
Directors of the New York, New Haven & 
Hartford R. R. Co., December 13, 1913. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: 

I have had a half century of opportunity for the 
intimate study of railway presidents. When I be- 
came attorney for the railway company forty-eight 
years ago, the three great presidents who filled the 
front page of the newspapers and occupied the at- 
tention of the country were Wilham H. Vander- 
bilt, Col. Thomas Scott and John W. Garrett. 

Commodore Vanderbilt began with the Harlem 
Railroad, one hundred and twenty-eight miles 
long; he and his son, William H., and his sons ex- 
tended the system until it is now over twenty 
thousand miles. Col. Thomas Scott and his suc- 
cessors in the Pennsylvania, have done the same 
for that system, and John W. Garrett and his suc- 
cessors in the Baltimore & Ohio, a similar work in 
that system. 

There is only half a century between that period 
and now, a mere tick in the watch in the progress 
of time, but in the evolution of our country a 
greater progress and development than ever known 
before among any people or any nation. 

It is well known that every mile of railroad into 
new territory brings into existence the settlement 
and cultivation of several hundred farms. It is well 
known that without transportation facilities be- 
tween farm and market, the richest agricultural 

[309] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

country in the world is a desert and industrial cities 
cannot either be created or exist. 

The early part of this period was one of devel- 
opment of the country by the extension of railroads. 
The offices of the president of that period were filled 
with citizens begging for railroad extension; they 
had no money, they depended upon getting rail- 
road facilities, and they wanted capital to invest 
for their benefit and take all the chances of the in- 
vestment. It was an agricultural section that might 
be brought into settlement and development; it 
was a water power through which industries and a 
manufacturing town might be created; it was an 
ambitious city which with further facilities at the 
expense of the railroad could enlarge the area of its 
market. 

Immediately following the citizens desiring these 
facilities came the promoters. This period fur- 
nished the greatest opportunities for this class of 
idealists. I came to have the largest admiration 
for the imagination and hopeful audacity of these 
rainbow chasers. They became so numerous that 
they were assigned to me and had to get through 
my office to see the president. We now have become 
accustomed to millions, multi-millions and billions, 
but I have seen visions of untold millions rise in airy 
clouds before my eyes while the eloquent promoter 
was expanding his scheme, to be dissipated by the 
cold breath of a hard fact, or the lack of hard cash. 

Dickens had only a limited field when he drew 
the character of Micawber. If he had sat in my 
chair, Micawber would have been a pygmy of airy 
opportunity compared with my promoters. I re- 
member one of most impressive personal appear- 
ance and apparent prosperity. He carried a large 
map in his hand and with extraordinary skill he 

[310] 



TRIBUTE TO MR. HOWARD ELLIOTT 

started it with a push and it rolled across the floor. 
With his cane he developed his plan. "There are 
the railroads under Vanderbilt control, there is the 
territory of the Pennsylvania, there that of the Bal- 
timore & Ohio, there is what the aggressive sys- 
tems west of Chicago are going to do in the East. 
When their plans are completed you will see that 
the territory of the Vanderbilt System will be bot- 
tled up and its revenues destroyed. I am here to 
save the situation. This red line marks my road. 
I have tentative options upon part of it. An ini- 
tial advance of thirty millions of dollars is the 
premium upon the insurance policy which saves 
your system, otherwise sure death awaits it." I 
said, "My friend, do you remember what Bismarck 
remarked to the King of Prussia, afterwards the 
Kaiser of Germany, when at the commencement of 
the Franco-Prussian War the King was discussing 
the map of Europe? Bismarck remarked, 'Your 
Majesty, roll up the map of Europe.' " Said the 
promoter, "I know you are a joker, Mr. Depew, but 
this is no joking matter, it is the salvation of your 
clients and of the thousands of men in the employ 
of the railroad." I said, "It is because of the im- 
portance of the subject that I use so distinguished 
an illustration as Bismarck and Emperor William. 
He said, "If you must have your joke, I suppose 
it means that I am to roll up this map." I said, 
"Yes Your Majesty." "And you will have nothing 
to do with my plans?" "No." "And you will not 
report it?" "No." "Well, will you give me a pass 

back home?" , 

Now the difference between the railroad presi- 
dent of that period and the railway pre siden t of to- 
day in authority and power is wonderful, lnose 
railway presidents were popular, the railway presi- 

[311] 



ON" THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

dents of to-day are the most criticized officials in 
the country. There were no restrictions upon the 
earlier presidents either by the United States or the 
several States; they were not hampered to any con- 
siderable extent by labor unions; their authority 
was practically unlimited, and also their power for 
good or evil. The presidents were broad-minded 
and patriotic. Troubles came because the same 
arbitrary power naturally went to the heads of the 
freight department, the passenger department and 
the other departments of the company. These 
minor men became local tyrants and created 
abuses in discriminations which led to popular in- 
dignation and restrictive legislation. They were all 
generals — General Freight Agent and Assistant 
General Freight Agent, General Passenger Agent 
and Assistant General Passenger Agent, General 
Traffic Manager and Assistant General Traffic 
Manager, General Superintendent and Assistant 
General Superintendent, etc., until it was some- 
thing like a Mexican Army. 

I remember being at a dinner at the United 
States Hotel in Saratoga with Mr. Vanderbilt — he 
was a modest and retiring gentleman — when a loud 
voice at the table in the rear of us was arousing the 
attention of everybody. The voice said, "Send me 
the head waiter," and the head waiter came. "Are 
you the head waiter?" "Yes, sir," "I want you to 
understand there is nothing in this hotel that is too 
good for me. I am Assistant General Passenger 
Agent of the New York Central Railroad." That 
man and his like have disappeared from the rail- 
road service. 

Railway presidents of to-day have tremendous 
responsibilities and very little power. Their offices 
are crowded with the representatives of the various 

[312] 



TRIBUTE TO MR. HOWARD ELLIOTT 

unions on the line demanding increase in pay; with 
citizens complaining of rates; with reporters want- 
ing to know what defense they have to offer for the 
accident which has happened; with process serv- 
ers summoning them before some State or Inter- 
state Commerce Commission or Grand Jury. In 
the Pirates of Penzance the policeman sings, "The 
policeman's lot is not a happy one." 

The Government, National and State, have prac- 
tically all power now over the roads; no expen- 
diture can be made, no debt can be increased, no 
line can be extended, no rate can be fixed, no func- 
tion whatever can be performed without consent 
of one, or all of these Commissions. It is power 
without responsibility as to results. On the other 
hand, the Labor Unions have grown into such 
strength that they absolutely control the wages, 
hours, discharge for any cause and conditions of 
service among all the employees of the railroads. 

The president is expected to satisfy by his ad- 
ministration the Interstate Commerce Commission, 
the Commissions of the several States through 
which his line runs, the employees of the company, 
the public who travel and who send their products 
over his line, the cities which are eternally wanting 
greater terminal facilities and larger and more mag- 
nificent depots, and the stockholders who expect 
some return upon their investment. For every ac- 
cident he is responsible and of every labor difficulty 
he is the cause. 

The railroad president of to-day needs to be a 
statesman of broad knowledge and economic infor- 
mation, of large experience in public affairs as well 
as in the operation of his railroad, of that rarest 
tact which keeps harmony with employees and at 
the same time serves the public. He needs a knowl- 

[313] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

edge of the law which will enable him to guide his 
administration through the conflicting statutes of 
the various States. In the early days the presi- 
dent's closest association was with the Freight De- 
partment, from whence came the most of his 
money; the Passenger Department, from which 
came the most of his troubles, and the Operating 
Department, which was nearest the people. To-day 
he is closest to the Law Department. The General 
Counsel must be at his elbow, when what is lawful 
in one State is unlawful in another, and sometimes 
both unlawful under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, 
to keep the president out of jail. 

It is said that an ambitious and talented young 
man asked the head of one of our great technical 
schools how long it would take him and how much 
it would cost to be an expert railway man and to 
become president of a system. The teacher replied: 
"If you want to master the most difficult problem 
of to-day, which is railroad transportation and the 
management and operating of railways, so as to 
become a president, it will take seven years in time, 
and, economically used, ten thousand dollars in 
money. If you want to become a Congressman or 
Legislator fully capacitated to solve these problems 
without effort, it will take three months of time 
and one hundred dollars." 

The present situation demonstrates how absurd 
it is to restrict the power of the Interstate Com- 
merce Commission by the Sherman Anti-Trust Act 
or any other restrictive legislation. That Commis- 
sion represents the people, and is alone competent 
to do the right thing and should have power com- 
mensurate with its responsibilities. 

The parcel post, long demanded and a public 
necessity, invades the whole field of express service. 

[314] 



TRIBUTE TO MR. HOWARD ELLIOTT 

The express companies pay to the railroad one half 
of their receipts for the transportation and expedi- 
tion of their matter. The Government has not as 
yet paid to the railroads one dollar for carrying the 
parcel post, but the Interstate Commerce Commis- 
sion has demanded that the express companies re- 
duce their rates twenty-five per cent. — a decision 
difficult to understand so long as the Government 
is doing the same business by the parcel post in 
competition with the express companies. If the 
Government is to be fair in this competition, it 
would be good business to let the express com- 
panies charge more than the Government, which 
would necessarily carry the business to the cheapest 
carrier, but to compel the express companies, in ad- 
dition to this competition, to reduce their rates to 
a non-paying basis, looks to the lay mind like 
confiscation. 

The railroads of the country are being starved. 
They have expended in improvements, extensions 
and betterments for the people within the last three 
years over six hundred millions of dollars. Their 
gross receipts have increased about two hundred 
millions, but, owing to the increase in wages in 
1910 and 1913, amounting, I think, to over sixty 
millions, and increase in cost of materials, the net 
this year was sixteen millions of dollars less than 
it was three years ago. In other words, the railroads 
have not received a dollar of return on their invest- 
ment of six hundred millions, paid wholly for the 
public convenience and benefit. The public is the 
beneficiary, receiving the improved service and the 
additional taxes, because when a railway company 
spends many millions for a depot made more artistic 
and extensive to satisfy local pride, the new station 
earns nothing on the investment, but the local 

[ 315 ] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

authorities add its cost to their assessment for taxes 
against the railroad. 

Those who oppose the present application for a 
very slight increase in the railway rates cite one 
prosperous road, the Lackawanna, but they fail to 
note that others, like the New Haven, are being 
starved, not permitted to meet, in the only way a 
railroad company can meet increasing operating 
expenses, by increased rates for doing the business. 
I know of one railroad, not a very great, but still 
an important one, which by the first increase in 
wages was put out of dividend paying, and by the 
second increase will fail this year to meet fixed 
charges. To put that road in the hands of a receiver 
means poorer service to the territory through which 
it runs; it means depreciation instead of mainte- 
nance and stagnation instead of improvement, ail 
of them injurious to the unfortunate producers in 
that territory, while an increase of rates sufficient 
to meet these obligations and keep up the line would 
be so small that neither the producer nor the con- 
sumer would feel it at all. It is estimated that the 
additional cost per household from the advanced 
charges resulting from the five per cent, increase in 
freight rates asked by the roads would average but 
thirty cents a year. This is all that the average 
family of the country would contribute towards the 
sixty millions of dollars' increase in wages which the 
railroads have given their employees in the past 
three years. 

Mr. Prouty, the distinguished chairman of the 
Interstate Commerce Commission, says that the ad- 
vance asked for by the railroads might be granted 
if the Commissioners knew what they would do 
with the money. The Commission practically con- 
trols that, and at this day of publicity, frequent 

[316] 



TRIBUTE TO ME. HOWARD ELLIOTT 

reports to Interstate and State Commissions, un- 
limited power to investigate and an enlightened 
conscience among railway executives — it is safe and 
wise to trust the companies. It is patriotic also, 
for the process of starvation cannot go much further 
without producing financial and industrial disaster 
involving the whole country. 

The morning papers tell the glad news of the 
recovery of the stolen Mona Lisa, the masterpiece 
of Leonardo da Vinci. When the find was an- 
nounced in the Italian Chamber of Deputies, these 
statesmen were in a wild scrimmage with fist and 
feet, but instantly the fight stopped and the Cham- 
ber resumed the dignity of the ancient Roman 
Senate. 

The whole world rejoices in the saving of this 
incomparable portrait with her tantalizing smile 
and witching eyes. Let us hope that the news will 
open the orbs of the Interstate Commerce Commis- 
sion and save the industrial situation of the country. 

I was for twenty-five years a director of the New 
Haven Railroad Company prior to 1903 and am 
very familiar with conditions in New England, as 
to its industries, transportation necessities and the 
general distribution among the people of New 
Haven Railroad stock. 

Mr. Elliott enters upon his work facing one of 
the most serious tragedies in railway history — the 
dividends of the stock of the New Haven Company 
have for forty years been the living, and in some 
cases the sole living, of thousands of families of 
limited means in the New England States. If Mr. 
Elliott can receive, as he ought, the help of the 
National and State Commissions, with their su- 
preme power, he will reincarnate and rehabilitate 
the New Haven System. 

[317] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

The New England railroads have the task in the 
most productive territory of the country of keeping 
that territory productive and growing when at the 
sources of its raw material competition with its 
manufacturers grows more severe every year. 

It is the man who ultimately counts in all railway 
operations. No matter how excellent or wonderful 
are safety appliances, the responsibility ultimately 
rests on the operator. In the largest degree in ad- 
ministration, the success or failure of a great and 
complicated system depends upon the executive. 
In the present crisis that man is Howard Elliott. 

Five generals failed and lost their reputations, a 
hundred thousand men were needlessly sacrificed 
and a thousand millions of dollars lost with the 
Army of the Potomac before Grant took command, 
and Appomattox followed. I believe, and so do 
all of us, that the New Haven has found its Grant, 
and that under Elliott the system will resume its 
old place as one of the most productive and popular 
lines in the country. 



[318] 



Speech at the Annual Dinner of the St. Nicholas 
Society of New York, at Delmonico's, Decem- 
ber 6, 1913. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the St. Nicholas 
Society: 

It gives me great pleasure to be once more with 
my brethren of St. Nicholas. During the almost 
half century that I have been a member, I can recall 
very few occasions when there were so many acute 
questions agitating the public mind. As a rule 
neither politics nor religion are permitted on our 
festive occasions. 

We meet to celebrate the virtues of our ancestors, 
to congratulate them upon what they did for hu- 
manity in imperishable principles which have sur- 
vived all the ages, and upon their good judgment 
in selecting New York as the place to which they 
would carry their brains, their faith, their enter- 
prise and their integrity. We congratulate ourselves 
that we had such intelligent, far-seeing and admir- 
able forebears. 

During the stress and anxieties of the Civil War 
we departed frequently from our custom to consider, 
because we could not help it, questions which so 
nearly affected our country, ourselves and our pos- 
terity. If serious topics are to be considered, there 
is among the descendants of the Dutch a broader- 
minded and more charitable platform than can be 
found anywhere else. 

New York is famous for the societies organized 
by the different nationalities which constitute its 

[319] 



ON" THE THRESHOLD OP EIGHTY 

cosmopolitan population, and all of them have for 
their main purpose keeping alive the traditions of 
the Fatherland, but incidentally they are charitable 
organizations with large funds. Those funds are 
constantly called upon to meet the necessities of 
newly arrived or shipwrecked members.of their race. 
It is a fine tribute to the strength of the old Holland 
stock that the thrift, which made them in the 
middle ages the merchants and bankers of the 
world, has descended so unimpaired to us that, while 
we also have a charitable fund, there are no appli- 
cants for its benefits and there are no beneficiaries 
charged upon it. 

In the darkness of the middle ages Holland was 
the beacon light for civil and religious liberty. All 
around was intellectual darkness and religious 
bigotry and persecution, but the Protestant, the 
Catholic and the Jew, fleeing from persecution, 
found hospitality in Holland. There they could 
exercise their faith with independence and liberty 
so long as they did not interfere with the liberty of 
others. It was this asylum, protecting the bigoted 
and narrow-minded Puritans fleeing from England, 
that transformed them in little more than ten years 
into that broad-minded and liberty-loving little 
band of Pilgrims, which, in the cabin of the May- 
flower, formed the constitution upon which rests 
our institutions. 

It is an interesting fact that after the people of 
Leyden were relieved from the siege, during which 
they had endured with wonderful courage untold 
privations and sufferings, when they were asked 
what reward they desired as a monument to their 
loyalty and patriotism, their answer was, "Give us 
a university." That university is still one of the 
best seats of learning there is in the world. The 

[320] 



ST. NICHOLAS SOCIETY SPEECH 

results of this liberal-mindedness was that the Hol- 
landers gave in that dark age to literature and law 
Erasmus, Grotius and others whose books are living 
lessons to-day, and to art Rubens, Rembrandt, 
Paul Potter and other immortals, whose works now 
command prices which in the aggregate would be 
almost equal to the assessed value of the entire 
property of Holland. I sometimes wonder what 
Rembrandt and Rubens in the other world must 
say to each other when they find the pictures which 
yielded them about one hundred dollars, or at the 
most four hundred dollars a piece, are bought by 
American collectors for five hundred thousand 
dollars, a sum so vast as compared with the money 
values in times in which they lived and the figures 
with which they were familiar that it is possible 
that even as spirits they are not able to grasp them. 
I believe that it is impossible in any gathering 
now to avoid a word upon current conditions; they 
are too novel and have a future so full of hope or 
peril, that we cannot help expressing our thoughts. 
In my college days at Yale, New England clergymen 
were never permitted to mention politics in their 
sermons, but on Thanksgiving-Day the pent-up pas- 
sions of the year were given free and unrestrained 
expression. One of the greatest preachers in New 
England of that period was the Rev. Dr. Leonard 
Bacon of the Center Church, New Haven. He was 
a great theologian, but nature had built him for a 
statesman. He was an intense abolitionist while 
his congregation was composed mostly of the rich 
merchants and manufacturers who were selling their 
goods to Southern slaveholders, so the iniquities 
of slavery were tabooed and their consciences were 
closed by the weight of their pocketbooks. On 
Thanksgiving Day Dr. Beacon had his opportunity; 

[321] 



OX THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

he scarified these commercial Christians with 
words of living fire, he endeavored to reach their 
consciences, or, if they had none, to implant some 
in them; he drew pictures of the horrors of slavery 
which have never been equalled, he lashed the sin- 
ners in a vain effort to drive them to the perform- 
ance of their Christian patriotic and civic duties. 
Such an effort on the part of Dr. Bacon on any 
other Sunday would have led to his immediate dis- 
missal from the church, but in the freedom of 
Thanksgiving Day these sinners listened, went home, 
gorged themselves with the enormous amount of the 
good things which make a Thanksgiving dinner and 
then complacently patting their stomachs remarked 
to one another, "The Doctor was never so fine as 
to-day." 

Suppose this is our Thanksgiving Day, though I 
am far from being Dr. Bacon. We have just had 
in our city the most remarkable election in recent 
times; it seems to indicate a revival of civic duty 
and interest in public affairs among all our citizens, 
which promises good government for all the future. 
The press and the people are predicting that this 
is the end of Tammany Hall, and there is an open 
revolt within the walls of that ancient organization 
which threatens its disruption. Much as we would 
like such an event to come about, I warn you, as 
the result of my long experience in politics, cover- 
ing a period greater than most of you have lived, 
that this end of Tammany will not occur. An or- 
ganization, which has lasted so long and is so deeply 
embedded in our civic life, cannot be put out of 
business in one election. Recently I had occasion, 
in preparing an historical address, to look into the 
conditions prevailing in our city a hundred years 
ago. I found that DeWitt Clinton was running for 

[322] 



ST. NICHOLAS SOCIETY SPEECH 

Governor, and the issue was, should the Erie Canal 
be built or not? Clinton stood for the construction 
of the canal; that great waterway, opening as it did 
the Great Lakes to the ocean, was one of the main 
factors in settling the West and Northwest, in mak- 
ing New York the Empire State and our City the 
Metropolis of the continent. 

Tammany of that day, a century ago, went to 
Clinton and wanted to know if he would give them 
the contracts for the construction of the canal. He 
positively refused and announced that they would 
be given impartially to the highest bidders and the 
construction supervised by State officials. Tam- 
many thereupon decided against Clinton and espe- 
cially against the extravagance of this project, 
shouting that it would bankrupt the State and be 
of no benefit. Clinton was triumphantly elected 
and the Erie Canal constructed. Everybody at that 
time joyously predicted the fall of Tammany Hall 
and its final disruption. A large number of its 
membership left and joined in the general condem- 
nation. One hundred years have passed during 
which Tammany has had many crises, some defeats 
and many victories, but it is still in the ring. The 
reason is in our human nature. People love to fight 
in a compact and militant organization. There are 
still thousand upon thousands who would rather 
take their chances of sharing in "honest graft" than 
join in an effort to make it impossible. 

There is a singular indifference to the manner in 
which public moneys are spent and that indifference 
enables the contractor to have his opportunity. So 
long as the contractor can control party leaders and 
the organization, and the party organization can 
control public officers who give the contracts and 
the inspectors who supervise their performance, so 

[323] 



Otf THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

long we will have the contractors generally success- 
ful, so long we will have the millions of dollars 
voted for good roads, which ought to be permanent 
and whose benefits are incalculable, squandered 
upon mud substitutes which disappear with the 
rains, the snows and the frosts. 

We are again, for the few times fortunately in 
our history, having an acute crisis in our neighbor- 
ing republic of Mexico. When there is danger of 
our country being involved in war, it is the duty of 
the good citizen to support the President. In the 
patriotism, good intentions and high intelligence of 
Mr. Wilson we all have confidence. His declaration, 
that so long as he can prevent it there will be no 
armed intervention and, therefore, no bloody war, 
is heartily approved, but his view of the duty of the 
United States in the Mexican crisis is certainly 
novel and questionable. It is that our Government 
will not recognize Huerta as President and that 
Huerta must not be a candidate for re-election, and 
that if he is re-elected, we will still refuse to recog- 
nize him as President of Mexico. This is a curious 
position and we wonder where the authority is for 
the President of one Republic to say to the Presi- 
dent of another that he must get out and that he 
cannot be reinstated even by the people. 

I have a friend, a very intelligent man, who has 
lived for twenty years in Mexico. He writes me, 
"All my interests, business and accumulations are 
in this country, my family is here, my children have 
grown up here, I have no place in the United States, 
and here I must remain. Under the provisions of 
the Mexican constitution, if the President and the 
Vice-President resign or die, the Mexican Congress 
elects a provisional President who holds office until 
the next election. The present Congress was elected 

[324] 



ST. NICHOLAS SOCIETY SPEECH 

with Madero and is, therefore, legitimately in office ; 
it has with unanimity elected Huerta provisional 
President; his title, therefore, is constitutional and 
legal. On this account every other nation in the 
world, except the United States, has recognized the 
President and his government. The failure of the 
United States to do so, and especially the declara- 
tion that he must resign or the government will 
never be recognized, has had most disastrous results. 
It has started up marauding bands of banditti all 
over the country, who say that under this attitude 
of the United States the Monroe Doctrine will pro- 
tect them from foreign intervention and that the 
sympathies of the American Government will be 
with them rather than with the legitimate govern- 
ment of the country. This attitude of the United 
States has wrecked the credit of Mexico so that she 
cannot borrow money to meet her obligations or 
enforce the laws. If the United States had recog- 
nized Huerta, as all other governments did," this 
gentleman says, "that Huerta, who is a trained sol- 
dier and a strong man, would within three months 
have dispersed the bandits, restored peace, order 
and law and protection for lives and property 
throughout the Republic," but now, he thinks, the 
result will be chaos. The attitude of our President 
is called "watchful waiting"; it seems to be rather 
an adoption of Christian Science methods. I believe 
that the faith inculcated by Christian Science heal- 
ers in many instances and upon many tempera- 
ments is eminently successful, but its efficacy on a 
nation of sixteen millions of people, only three 
millions of whom can read or write is at least an 
interesting experiment. 

There has been much criticism of the diplomatic 
appointments of this administration. I have been 

[325] 



ON" THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

familiar with all of our Ministers and Ambassadors 
to Great Britain since the Civil War. They have 
been a very remarkable and distinguished selection 
of diplomats. I met our present Ambassador, Mr. 
Page, in London last summer, and I believe that he 
will line up to the full stature of what is expected 
of an American Ambassador to the Court of St. 
James. I was amused by the report in one of our 
papers of a banquet given to one of the departing 
diplomats by his fellow citizens in the West. In 
his speech he is reported to have said, "I was born 
in Europe; when I became of age I had two ambi- 
tions: the first to get rich — I have accomplished 
that by coming here and going into the brewery 
business; my second was to get into good society, 
and, therefore, I have sought and secured the ap- 
pointment to the Balkan States." Let us hope that 
the society among these mountaineers will meet his 
highest expectations of what good society is. 

We of the St. Nicholas are grateful to the Presi- 
dent for the selection that he has made of our 
Minister to Holland. Never has there been a more 
ideal selection of Ministers to the Netherlands than 
Dr. Van Dyke. His name is Dutch, his ancestry 
Dutch ; he represents the highest type of intellectual 
and patriotic Americans and will shed lustre upon 
the office, his country and his race, whose virtues 
we are celebrating here to-night. All hail to 
Minister Van Dyke ! 

We are next year to celebrate with imposing cere- 
monies on both sides of the Atlantic the completion 
of a hundred years of peace between the United 
States and Great Britain. It is a most inspiring 
event and the results of this century of peace upon 
the history of the world, the welfare of humanity, 
the advance of civilization and the enlargement of 

[ 326 ] 



ST. NICHOLAS SOCIETY SPEECH 

liberty are simply incalculable. Already commit- 
tees have been formed in this country and Great 
Britain, who are preparing a program of historical 
interest and importance. But another centennial 
has been lost sight of. It is of peculiar importance 
here to-night. This year is the hundredth anni- 
versary of the liberty of Holland, which should be 
celebrated by every person who has Holland blood 
in his or her veins with gratitude and enthusiasm. 
Napoleon had taken Holland under his authority 
by making the Dutch accept his brother Joseph as 
their King. Joseph, finding that he could not pro- 
tect his people against the rapacity of his mighty 
brother, resigned his office. All the healthy young 
men of the country were drafted into the French 
Army ; most of them had been lost in the disastrous 
Russian campaign; taxes had been imposed to an 
extent that was confiscatory, the decrees and em- 
bargoes of Napoleon had ruined the commerce upon 
which Holland depended for her living as well as 
her prosperity. 

Patriotic citizens met, as they had done many 
times in preceding centuries in stress of national 
disaster, to consider the situation and the means 
necessary to rescue their country. They organized 
and drove out the French Army. They then ap- 
pealed to the Prince of Orange, who was living in 
London, to come over and lead them. The Prince 
replied, "I will if you will establish a government 
where the ruler rules by the consent of the gov- 
erned and with a constitution which creates a repre- 
sentative parliament." As the heads of the House 
of Orange had done for centuries, this Prince organ- 
ized a Dutch Army and expelled the enemy beyond 
the frontier. At Waterloo he and his soldiers per- 
formed prodigies of valor and contributed materially 

[327] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

to the victory over Napoleon. When he was 
wounded, he tore from his uniform the decorations 
which he had won on many battlefields, and tossing 
them to his troops, said, "If I die they are yours, 
for you have assisted in winning them." 

In the peace that followed, the independence of 
Holland was recognized and has been successfully 
maintained for a hundred years. During that period 
Holland has fully sustained her position among the 
nations of the world in the liberality of her institu- 
tions, in the hospitality of her people, in the enter- 
prise of her merchants, and in the devotion of her 
citizens to their country and their God. 

The cry with which they welcomed the Prince of 
Orange and which rang through every hamlet and 
every cottage in the land was "Oranje Boven." The 
motto of this society is "Oranje Boven" ; let us here 
to-night rise and joyously celebrate this hundredth 
birthday of the renewed liberty and restoration of 
Holland by shouting with cheers and in unison, 
"Oranje Boven"! 



[328] 



Address at the Dinner given to Mr. William C. 
Brown by his Official Associates at the Univer- 
sity Club, New York City, December 29, 1913. 

My Friends: 

I have participated in celebrations, such as we are 
enjoying to-night, for nearly as many years as the 
age of our guest. I began way back in college days 
with dinners to retiring professors, and have con- 
tinued since in appreciations for Presidents and ex- 
Presidents of the United States, Governors and 
ex-Governors of the State of New York, Mayors 
and ex-Mayors of the City of New York, and others 
who have attained distinction. 

In nearly all festive gatherings like this, though 
in honor of an eminent gentleman, there is a flaw 
in the diamond — it is that a personal interest, sug- 
gesting gratitude for favors to come, attaches to 
the hospitality the hosts are giving — but to-night 
the diamond is absolutely pure and flawless. We 
are here to bid hail and farewell to our Chief upon 
the occasion of his retirement from his responsible 
position into private life, because of our admira- 
tion for him as an executive, because of the charm- 
ing associations we have had with him as his col- 
leagues, his cabinet and members of his staff, and 
because we love him. 

There is a harmony among railway men which 
exists in no other profession. Rivalries among law- 
yers and doctors, and fierce competition between 
business men tend to the creation of personal ani- 
mosities, but railroad officials are almost absolutely 

[329] 



OX THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

free from envy, jealousy or malice. They rejoice 
at the promotion of a brother in the profession and 
are delighted at the honors which are merited and 
given to their associates. 

Even in the old days when there was unlimited 
rate-cutting to the disaster of the corporations, and 
the public, and when the pressure from stock- 
holders, directors and the press was brought to bear 
upon executives and traffic managers to break up 
the custom and make agreements for the main- 
tenance of rates, and when, as was customary in 
those times, for all those who participated to en- 
deavor before the signing and execution of the 
agreement, to make contracts for cut rates to the 
limit of its life, even then there were no animosities, 
only admiration for the officer who reached the 
telegraph office first. 

Railway transportation, which has done every- 
thing for the development of the country, for its 
settlement, for the creation of its cities and in- 
dustries, affords more opportunities for capable, 
resourceful and able men than there is a supply. 

The difficulties, dangers and responsibilities of 
high executive positions in the railway, with the 
necessity of satisfying a Board of Directors, gen- 
erally composed of the strongest men in the 
country, of stockholders who are anxious for a rea- 
sonable return upon their investment, and of the 
public, always alert and rarely satisfied, create a 
brotherhood among the members of our vocation. 
But there is quite another reason for our friend- 
ship and sympathetic unity; it is the efforts con- 
stantly made by politicians to bar from participa- 
tion in the honors of public life the two million of 
honest, most intelligent and worthy citizens who 
are in the railway service. 

[330] 



TEIBUTE TO MR. WILLIAM C. BROWN" 

Railways have been unpopular and will continue 
in a measure to be so, because the transportation 
of goods and persons is in the nature of a tax. 
We know that for the service rendered the public 
pay less to the railway companies for carrying their 
goods and their persons than they are compelled to 
pay for any other service they require. Neverthe- 
less, there would not be any hostility to a railroad 
man serving the public in any capacity, local or 
general, if it was not fomented by politicians be- 
cause they think it is popular. 

At a dinner last week a distinguished officer of 
the Government was the guest of honor. This emi- 
nent official said in effect that "one of the reforms 
which has been brought about by the adoption of 
the amendment to the Constitution for the elec- 
tion of United States Senators by the people, was 
that no railroad officer or employee could here- 
after occupy a seat in the United States Senate." 
This prohibition is not to apply to a manufacturer 
who is deeply interested in the tariff, nor to a news- 
paper publisher who is also interested, nor to a 
lawyer, nor to a doctor, nor to a minister, nor to an 
artisan, nor to a mechanic, nor to a professional 
politician who lives by his wits, nor to the gambler 
in food products or necessaries of life, but only to 
railroad men. 

It is an assertion which has been disapproved 
every time a railroad man has been chosen for local 
or general office, that he, by reason of his associa- 
tion, will not give to the public unselfish and patri- 
otic service. I believe that if a majority of Con- 
gress was composed of men in the railway service 
who had been trained in the school of dealing with 
the public, with an intimate knowledge of the needs 
of the village, the county, the State, and the gen- 

[331] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

era! government, which is necessary for a railroad 
man, there would be much better and much more 
useful legislation, and so far as laws can accomp- 
lish such results, increasing prosperity and oppor- 
tunity for everybody. 

Chief Arthur, for many years head of the 
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, was a man 
of commanding executive ability. He would have 
adorned the Governorship of the State of New 
York, or a seat in either the House of Representa- 
tives or the Senate of the United States. Poli- 
ticians who thus misrepresent our profession think 
it is popular and safe, because railway men don't 
care, but some day the railway men of the country 
will get tired of this abuse. They possess the 
power through their perfect organization to retire 
permanently from public life all such enemies, be- 
cause of the vocation they have selected for their 
life work. 

I have known more or less intimately all of the 
Presidents of the United States, commencing with 
Abraham Lincoln, and all of the Presidents of the 
New York Central Railroad, commencing with 
Dean Richmond. Richmond was one of those orig- 
inal, masterful, forceful leaders of men who makes 
a mark upon his time. It was while I was a mem- 
ber of the Legislature, over fifty years ago, that I 
became acquainted with him. The union between 
the Central and the Hudson River roads had not 
then been made. Richmond was not only Presi- 
dent of the New York Central, but he was the 
unquestioned leader of the Democratic Party in 
the State. His writing was the worst ever known, 
and could rarely be deciphered even by himself. 

A story was abroad then that the Bishop of 
Western New York had written to him requesting 

[332] 



TRIBUTE TO MR. WILLIAM C. BROWN 

a pass; he answered briefly denying the request; 
the Bishop thought it was a permission to ride free, 
it was so accepted by the conductors, and his grace, 
the Bishop, had transportation over the New York 
Central Lines for a year with the compliments of 
the President. 

Commodore Vanderbilt, under whose adminis- 
tration I first came into the service, was one of 
those original geniuses with rare constructive talent 
who arise only once in a century. As an illustra- 
tion of the difference between his time and now 
— though he was the richest man in the United 
States, though he controlled more lines of railway 
than any other man— he was popular with the 
public. It was because at that time the public 
wanted men like him to extend the railways for 
which all communities were crying, and to enlarge 
the facilities of existing lines. If he was alive now 
how different would be his position! 

William H. Vanderbilt was an exceedingly able 
and capable executive; for his time he was better 
fitted for his great task than would have been his 
father. He suffered under that handicap which so 
often comes to the sons of very great men ; the over- 
shadowing genius of the father does not give to the 
son a due appreciation of his abilities, even if they 
are as great as those of his parent. 

The New York Central has had several Presi- 
dents since Mr. William H. Vanderbilt. I held the 
office for thirteen years. Also in the list were Mr. 
Rutter and Mr. Callaway. Mr. Newman, whom we 
are all glad to greet here this evening, is one of 
the broadest-minded, ablest and wisest of the rail- 
way presidents of my time. When he had reached 
the zenith of his fame, power and usefulness, when 
the directors were begging him to remain, and stock- 

[333] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

holders were unanimous in wishing him to continue, 
and the whole employment of the service were 
happy and satisfied, he showed his wise, level- 
headedness by an act of renunciation which I have 
rarely witnessed. For him to stay was to hasten, 
by responsibilities increasing with the advancing 
years of his life, his entrance through the pearly 
gates into the other world. He knew what this 
world is, what a good world it is for those who treat 
it right, how full it is of good people whom you 
can enjoy and who can enjoy you, and he made up 
his mind to stay here and enjoy Heaven on earth 
just as long as he could; certainly for the five years 
that he has been trying this experiment he has been 
most successful in health, happiness and evidences 
of longevity, and radiating happiness and good-will 
all about him. 

Mr. Brown came into the New York Central 
service when it needed his great talent, his execu- 
tive ability and his creation and control of effi- 
ciency. The system has wonderfully prospered 
under his management. The most beautiful station 
in the world has been constructed under the most 
exacting conditions and greatest difficulties in the 
maintenance of the train service. It has been the 
wonder of the engineers who have visited us from 
other countries, that with tracks shifted every hour 
and blasting all about and excavating everywhere 
and structures going up, that the train service, so 
vast, so complicated, of the three lines terminating 
here, should have been uninterrupted. This beau- 
tiful station suggests one accomplishment of our 
President. 

He, however, I think will be longest remembered 
for what he has done in bringing about harmonious 
and cordial relations between farmers and the rail- 

[334] 



TRIBUTE TO MR. WILLIAM C. BROWN 

road. The experimental farms which he has had the 
railroad company establish along its lines have 
been schools of instruction which ultimately must be 
efficient instructors in carrying people back to the 
farm, in adding to attractiveness and in reducing the 
cost of living. 

It is a saying almost as old as the ages that "The 
man who makes two blades of grass grow where 
only one grew before is a benefactor of his race." 
Grass, however, feeds the cattle on a thousand hills, 
but Mr. Brown has succeeded in making three ears 
of corn grow where only one grew before, and that 
feeds the multitude. 

We hear much in our country of "self-made 
men"; many of them are not admirable types, on 
the contrary quite the reverse. Few of them, as they 
assert loudly, stridently and aggressively, that they 
are self-made, are ever popular or pleasing. I re- 
member when a baldheaded man was boasting that 
he had made himself, William R. Travers said to 
him: "Why the devil, when you were doing it, 
didn't you put some hair on your head?" The rail- 
way furnishes an opportunity for the growth of 
self-made men whose existence is a valuable asset 
to the whole country, both in what they do and in 
the example which they set. Every man about this 
table is, in a way, a self-made man, but among the 
most conspicuous is our ex-President, Mr. William 
H. Newman, our President, Mr. Brown, who is 
about to leave us, and our incoming President, 
Mr. Smith. 

When Mr. Brown was a boy upon the farm he 
dropped the plow, climbed the fence and enlisted in 
the railway service in the humble but useful 
capacity of feeding wood (which was then used in- 
stead of coal), to the tender of the locomotive. That 

[335] 



ON" THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

excited the attention of a section foreman who 
wanted him to take the spade. He soon knew more 
than the section foreman, and then the head of the 
telegraph service required him ; the train dispatcher 
saw his talent and made him an assistant; the 
superintendent needed him and then the General 
Manager made him Superintendent; he was so good 
a Superintendent that the Vice-President made 
him General Manager, and so good a General Man- 
ager that the President made him Vice-President, 
and so strong a Vice-President that the Board of 
Directors made him Senior Vice-President, and he 
displayed such rare executive talent that he was 
elected President. 

The hard labors of an executive of a great rail- 
way very speedily use him up unless he finds recre- 
ation somewhere. Happily Mr. Brown possesses, 
in a large degree, the qualities which make a suc- 
cessful politician and public man. He knows the 
people and he likes to mingle with them and they 
like him. He has been a favored orator and an in- 
structive one at various farmers' gatherings and 
meetings of Chambers of Commerce. He is des- 
tined to a career in public life. When he enters 
upon his activities as a farmer with all the other 
things which will come to him and which he will 
do, I am sure the people of his State will elect him 
Governor, and I believe that he will reach and 
adorn the United States Senate. 

As a farmer he is already the owner of the prize 
stallion of the United States, and when devoting 
his whole attention to agriculture, he will be an 
efficient aid in answering the cry for better horses. 
His enthusiasm cannot be restrained and he will 
have better cows, better pigs, better sheep, better 
poultry; his land will produce by the acre so much 

[336] 



TKIBUTE TO MK. WILLIAM 0. BROWN 

more than that of his neighbor, that the Brown 
Farm will become an Agricultural University. 

Mr. Brown, we who love you, in seeking some 
permanent memorial of our affection which should 
be always with you and in your house, have se- 
lected this loving cup. On festive occasions its 
contents will be enjoyed by yourself, your family 
and your friends, and in the intervals your wife 
will fill it with flowers. Its mission is to keep in 
remembrance those who have been so long asso- 
ciated with you and whose admiration and affec- 
tion have increased with the years. 



f 337 ] 



An Appreciation of the Late Judge Henry E. 
Howland, Contributed to Bench and Bar,, De- 
cember, 1913. 

Henry E. Howland was at Yale with me. He was 
in the class of 1854 and I in the class of 1856. He 
was a junior when I was a freshman and a senior 
when I was a sophomore, and, while there was very- 
little acquaintance at that time between under and 
upper classmen, Howland was so universally popu- 
lar among the students that we became quite inti- 
mate. He was interested then, as always after- 
ward, in everything that concerned the welfare of 
the College. Athletics were in their infancy, but 
he was active in promoting them in the different 
classes and in the University at large, and used to 
address the classes below him to arouse their in- 
terest, having already developed the faculty of 
humor and story telling for which he was after- 
wards distinguished. 

He was a studious and hard working lawyer all 
his life, but found time for excursions in many 
other fields of work and pleasure. He was an excep- 
tion in this respect to most of his contemporaries. 
He was deeply interested in politics and became 
associated intimately with the remarkable body 
of young men whom Chester A. Arthur, for a long 
time the Republican leader and afterwards Presi- 
dent of the United States, gathered about him, and 
all these young men reached positions of distinc- 
tion. 

While New York was most of the time under the 
control of Tammany, as it has been ever since, yet 

[338] 



AN APPRECIATION OF JUDGE HOWLAND 

these young college men rescued the city several 
times in notable campaigns. In this way Howland 
became successively a Judge of the Marine Court 
and candidate for the Court of Common Pleas and 
Justice of the Supreme Court. He was fond of tak- 
ing desperate chances where he believed that the 
people could be served by personal sacrifice on his 
part, and that led him to run for Alderman. Dur- 
ing his two terms he was the life of the Board, and 
could unearth a job, expose a graft and bring even 
adversaries to the adoption of measures of relief, 
both by the intimate knowledge which he displayed 
of the situation and of the underhand dealings of 
those men who preyed upon municipalities and his 
unfailing humor and good nature. Judge Howland 
could arouse the people to an interest disastrous 
to the schemes by a good story, when a denuncia- 
tion would have fallen on closed ears and received 
little notice in the press. 

The passion of his life was Yale, and he joined 
with me in organizing the Yale Alumni Associa- 
tion of New York, of which I was president for the 
first ten years and he of the succeeding ten, until it 
was merged into the Yale Club. The Association 
was most helpful in keeping up the Yale spirit, 
bringing together the recent graduates and giving 
them acquaintance with the older and successful 
men and also helping the University. 

I was twelve years his colleague in the Yale Cor- 
poration. He never missed a meeting and was fer- 
tile in suggestions upon the many and sometimes 
difficult questions which are always present with 
the governing board of our universities. 

His attendance upon the practice games of the 
baseball and football teams, and the training of the 
crews, gave to the boys the encouragement of feel- 

[339] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OP EIGHTY 

ing that the governing board of the University had 
a deep interest in the establishment of an athletic 
reputation for Yale, and sustaining it upon every 
field. 

On the social side Judge Howland was one of the 
most delightful among the charming men of this 
metropolitan city. As an after-dinner speaker he 
had a fund of original anecdotes quite equal to those 
of the best story teller we ever had in New York, 
the late Judge John R. Brady. Few men knew so 
well what story fitted the case and how to tell it so 
that the snapper cracked and merged into the up- 
roarious laughter of the crowd. He never attacked 
his adversaries directly, but had something of the 
Lincoln method of ridiculing them by an apt anec- 
dote. 

Those who were intimate with him wondered at 
the easy way in which he met and performed his 
many obligations. He possessed that rarest faculty 
for health and longevity, the ability to go from 
one department of work to another, carrying into 
the new field none of the limitations of previous 
activity which so often is fatal among men who 
have made successes in any one line, and are in- 
capable of effort in any other. They become nar- 
row through the brain pressure on the same cells, 
while the other cells become atrophied and the re- 
sult is that outside of their offices they are uninter- 
esting companions and of little benefit to their com- 
munities. Howland, however, had discovered early 
in life the rest and recuperation that there are in 
change of occupation; he had found that from these 
excursions he returned to his main work renewed 
and refreshed. 

As a lawyer he always satisfied his clients, and 
they knew by results that they were well served. 

[340] 



AN APPEECIATION OF JUDGE HOWLAND 

On the legal side his judgment was excellent, but 
on all sides, in the troubles that come to a lawyer 
of general practice, he had rare wisdom and com- 
mon sense. 

Among other activities, he belonged to two din- 
ing clubs which met once a month. The members 
of these clubs were few and their meetings were 
both intimate and confidential. He was a valuable 
addition to these little gatherings of tired and busy 
men. He was fresher than any and brought to the 
table experiences from his busy life and wide con- 
tact with men of affairs — by way of incident and 
anecdote — those refreshing things which make an 
evening to be remembered. 

During his long and most active career as a 
judge, a lawyer, a politician, a club member and 
club president, an educator and public speaker, he 
gained friends and never lost one. He filled a large 
place for a long time in the life of this great city. 



[341] 



Speech at the Presentation of the Tragedy "An. 
dromaque" by Racine at the Harris Theatre, 
New York lCity, by the French Dramatic So- 
ciety, February 4, 1914. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: 

I feel embarrassed in appearing before you this 
afternoon for two reasons — one, it is always dan- 
gerous for a speaker to interrupt or postpone an an- 
ticipated pleasure, and the other, you are here for 
the purpose of listening to one of the immortal 
tragedies of Racine. 

We have the highest authority for the statement 
that it is impossible to paint the lily, it is equally 
impossible to add to the fame of Racine, but when 
Mr. Bonheur, the President of the French Dramatic 
Society, came to me with the request that I should 
say a few words of appreciation of the efforts of that 
organization in the work they began and which we 
hope may successfully continue, I could not resist. 

Certainly the Society is performing a service 
which is both patriotic and educational. Nothing 
could be of happier moment than to bring to the at- 
tention of the American people the results of French 
genius in literature and the drama. 

The friendly relations between France and the 
United States began one hundred and thirty-seven 
years ago. It was a time when wars were universal, 
when nations were most hostile and were divided on 
race and religious grounds, when the ambition of 
dynasties and the hunger for territory were never 
so great. The American people were in revolution 
for independence and for founding a government 

[342] 



FRENCH DRAMATIC SOCIETY SPEECH 

upon Republican principles. The friendship of 
monarchical France and the assistance rendered us 
by France at that time are preeminently the ro- 
mance of history. 

The Marquis cle Lafayette, heir to one of the best 
names in the French nobility, came here as a vol- 
unteer and gave to Washington the service of his 
sword and his fortune. In the darkest hour of our 
struggle, Lafayette returned to France and came 
back with a French army under Rochambeau and 
a French navy under de Grasse, which rehabilitated 
the Continental Army and the finances of our Revo- 
lution. To that assistance, as we look back upon it 
to-day, our ancestors owed their freedom. In all 
the revolutions in France during succeeding years, 
this friendship of one hundred and thirty-seven 
years has continued unimpaired; it has been 
strained at times, but never broken, and to-day it is 
more cordial than ever. The French, after passing 
through seven revolutions with different govern- 
ernments, forty years ago established the present 
republic modeled on the lines of the Constitution 
of the United States. Never in modern times have 
the French people been so loyal to their institu- 
tions, so patriotic in their determination to serve 
and protect them as now. Never before have 
French industry, literature and art been more pro- 
gressive and prosperous. 

Nothing is more interesting than the heredity of 
fundamental principles. The Pilgrim Fathers in 
the cabin of the Mayflower first enunciated in their 
charter the doctrine of the equality of all men be- 
fore the law and the foundation of a government 
upon just and equal laws. One hundred years 
afterwards a French philosopher, Rousseau, startled 
France by advocating the same principles. There 

[343] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OP EIGHTY 

is no probability that he had ever heard of the Pil- 
grim Fathers, of the Mayflower or of the charter 
which was prepared in its cabin. The principle had 
worked its way out in his own mind. It became 
at once a toy and plaything among the dandies and 
beauties of the French Court. It became a political 
creed in France in 1783, the year the French Army, 
after the organization of American Independence, 
returned to France. The French soldiers brought 
back with them the practical and successful appli- 
cation of these principles in the formation of the 
American government and the happy liberties of 
the American people. The teachings of Rousseau 
instantly assumed practical form. The French 
Revolution followed and the flower and the fruit 
of it all is the French Republic of to-day. 

The division of people into parties is a state of 
mind; why a man is a Republican, a Democrat, a 
Socialist, a Prohibitionist or a Suffragette is a state 
of mind, so also the relations between nationalities 
is a state of mind. Nothing promotes unity of 
minds in different nations like intelligent intercom- 
munication and exchange of thought. I remember 
in my youth when the works of Lamartine were the 
rage of the day, and then followed Guizot; they, 
with the great novelists, Balzac, Dumas, Victor 
Hugo, drew closer and closer to France the youth of 
the United States. 

I have been a student and admirer of the American 
stage for over half a century. Its indebtedness to 
French dramatists and to the production of French 
art on the stage cannot be estimated. Taking the 
last fifty years as a whole, the majority of the plays 
which have appeared upon our stage have come 
from the French; they were borrowed and then 
adapted. Language is often used to so soften a 

[344] 



FRENCH DRAMATIC SOCIETY SPEECH 

theft that it conceals a crime. The French play 
is stolen bodily, then it is adapted, and in the adap- 
tation the name of the original genius disappears 
and in his place the adapter becomes a dramatic 
author. This has all been an invaluable education ; 
it has produced American dramatists and enriched 
the stage with American actors of high merit. 
There is now, and has been for the past few years, 
a body of American dramatists who are producing 
original and excellent plays that present properly 
the aspirations and ideas of American society. Now 
that we are no longer dependent upon the adapta- 
tion to our life of foreign ideas and social condi- 
tions, but have a standard of our own, we can draw 
closer to and recognize more thoroughly and justly 
the French originals. 

It was a happy thought which brought about the 
exchange of professors between France and the 
United States. The most brilliant men of the 
French Academy have come to our universities and 
colleges, and in the exchange American professors 
have delighted audiences at the Sorbonne and in 
the historic university at Montpelier. These ex- 
changes have led to an acquaintance followed by 
study of French literature here and American lit- 
erature over there. The fruit and flower of this 
international exchange is the production upon the 
American stage of the classics of French drama 
acted by a company of French actors. It is a won- 
derful advance in international cordiality that we 
can have the French stage acclimated in our City 
of New York. 

We have still much to learn, and this French 
Dramatic Association has a virgin field for its edu- 
cational operations. On my way here this after- 
noon, a successful man of affairs stopped me and 

[345] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

said, "Where are you hurrying?" I said, "To the 
Harris Theatre to speak on Racine." "Oh, yes," 
he answered. "I know the place. A lively town up 
in Wisconsin, but I did not know they were selling 
lots in New York." 

I congratulate the students of the colleges and 
the schools that have this opportunity, which was 
not enjoyed by preceding generations. The French 
of the colleges and the schools, without the oppor- 
tunity for practical use, frequently strands the 
student when he or she arrives in Paris. It is good 
in its way, but the French do not understand it. 
But when it is spoken, as it will be in these 
dramatic presentations, it becomes both a delight 
and an instruction. 

Racine, whose masterpiece you hear this after- 
noon, did more than any other to elevate the French 
stage and by his genius to add to the beauty of the 
French language and enrich its literature. If, in 
the other world, the spirits of the departed are per- 
mitted to know what is transpiring here, we can 
picture the emotions of the spirit of Racine when 
it views with pride three hundred years after his 
death his great tragedy enacted in a country which 
he never heard of and among a people who, at that 
time, had no existence, but who in numbers and in 
power are greater than was the whole of the world 
with which he was familiar. 

In congratulating the Society upon the happy 
inauguration of its work, I am sure you will all join 
me in wishing for it permanent success and a 
growth which will lead to the formation of other 
similar societies in every great city in the United 
States. 



[346] 



Speech at the Luncheon of the Pilgrims' Society 
of the United States to the Right Honorable, 
the Earl of Kintore, at the Waldorf-Astoria, 
New York, February 9, 1914. 

Gentlemen: 

This room has been dedicated to international 
good will between the United States and Great 
Britain. Ten years ago this month the Pilgrims' 
Society had here its first meeting. During the 
decade its history has been rich in functions for the 
promotion of international good will among all 
English-speaking peoples, and in results which have 
been eminently satisfactory. We, the Pilgrims, enter 
upon our second decade satisfied with our past, and 
hopeful for the future. A year ago at this same 
hour we welcomed the first delegation under the 
Earl of Weardale, which came over from England 
in the interest of our hundred years of peace. It is 
our privilege and our pleasure to-day to welcome 
another English Ambassador, a Statesman who has 
performed eminent services for his country in al- 
most every department of English public life. He 
has brought to his mission his great ability, his ripe 
experience and a large talent for tact and diplo- 
macy. The cause has been benefited beyond words 
by the presence in our country of this accomplished 
representative of its purposes and its ideals. This 
gentleman is our guest to-day, the Right Honor- 
able, the Earl of Kintore. 

We have been so busy with adapting ourselves to 
our New Freedom that we have not given this sub- 

[347] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

ject the attention which it has received on the other 
side of the Atlantic; however, it is our habit as a 
people to wake up late to any duty and then per- 
form it with a speed and efficiency which makes 
up for lost time. The celebration of the completion 
of the hundred years of peace between the United 
States and Great Britain has an incalculable inter- 
national value. 

When the representatives of United States and 
Great Britain met at Ghent to arrange the terms of 
peace one hundred years ago next December, all 
Europe was at war. Great Britain and every nation 
on the continent had combined together for a su- 
preme effort to destroy Napoleon. One hundred 
years have passed during which there have been 
innumerable wars in which every country in the 
world has been repeatedly engaged. We have had 
several of our own, but there has been no hostile 
shot fired between the United States and Great 
Britain. We have been frequently on the verge of 
hostilities but they have been avoided by diplomacy. 
The one supreme and glorious fruit of liberties 
under the Constitution of the United States and the 
Constitution of Great Britain is the growth of pub- 
lic opinion. We have had difficulties over boundary 
lines involving large areas of territory which have 
always been settled only by war; difficulties over 
rights on the sea, which are fruitful subjects for 
war; difficulties at the time of our Civil strife, which 
were full of reasons for war, and difficulties arising 
out of our stepping in between two foreign countries 
and demanding arbitration, which with any other 
people and in any other age would have been re- 
sented by war. These causes for arbitration by the 
sword were more acute than the causes which led 
to the war between Prussia and Austria that gave 

[348] 



TEIBTJTE TO THE EARL OF KINTOEE 

Prussia the dominance in Germany; between 
France and Germany which lost the former two of 
her richest provinces and a legacy of generations of 
hate; of the contests between France and Austria, 
which eventuated in Italian unity, and the war be- 
tween Greece and the Balkan states and Turkey 
which afterwards became a contest over the spoils 
between the allies and closed with the opera bouffe 
of war, the peaceful recapture of Adrianople which 
had been the object of the strife with the Turks. 

There is peace to-day in Europe, but it is peace 
so brittle that Germany has taken out of the prin- 
cipal, not the income, of her people two hundred 
and fifty millions of dollars for her army. France 
is doing the same for her army, and Germany and 
England are feverishly building dreadnoughts. We 
of the United States are so at peace with all the 
world that we refuse to add to our little army and 
fight over one more dreadnought for our navy. We 
have an irritation upon our Mexican border, but we 
are not, if possible, going to permit it to involve us 
in war. Our government's attitude toward the 
parties to that conflict is illustrated by the old story 
of the wife who, seeing a life and death struggle be- 
tween her husband and a bear, said, "Let the best 
one win, though my sympathies are with the bear." 

This celebration is both an event and a senti- 
ment. If duty was a sentiment which had to be 
aroused by canvassers and appeals, it would have 
little permanent value, but a sentiment which 
under every stress and strain has kept the peace 
for one hundred years is not an accident, it is a 
monument. There was a slight scratch upon the 
amber, not at all serious, yet deplorable, happening 
last year in the exception of our coastwise shipping 
from tolls on the Panama Canal. It has always 

[349] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

been a wonder how, under the circumstances, the 
privilege was so easily granted and it is especially 
difficult when we consider that coastwise shipping 
is the only unrestricted monopoly created by the 
tariff, and the policy of this Government is to de- 
stroy tariff monopoly. 

President Wilson within the last few days has 
happily removed this difficulty, he has relieved his 
party from this inconsistent position of being the 
agents of tariff monopoly and at the same time has 
won the applause of the American people and of the 
world by the assertion that when there is some 
doubt on a question of national honor, all doubts 
must be in favor of honor and faith. There is no 
place in the world more subject to brain storms 
than capitals, and none more so than Washington. 
This privilege to the coastwise shipping was passed 
with a rush and a hurrah under a brain storm by 
which voters in the Senate and House believed they 
were giving Home Rule to Ireland. 

We are welcoming to our shores peoples of all 
countries, races and nationalities, save yellow ones, 
but our relations with the English-speaking peoples 
of the world, including with Great Britain her self- 
governing colonies, Canada, Australia and South 
Africa, can be differentiated in the remark of an 
old-time Southern Colonel who was discussing with 
a friend the never settled dispute about the status 
of different religious sects. "Yes, suh," said the 
Colonel, "a Catholic can get to Heaven, so can a 
Presbyterian, a Baptist, Methodist, Congregation- 
alist, Unitarian, or Universalist, but if you wish to 
go to Heaven as a gentleman with gentlemen, you 
must be an Episcopalian." 

There is confusion in the public mind that this 
sentiment expressed in the celebration next year in- 

[350] 



TRIBUTE TO THE EARL OF KINTORE 

eludes only the British Isles, but there is equal en- 
thusiasm in the self-governing colonies of Australia, 
of South Africa and especially of our neighbor, 
Canada. 

It was a happy thought on the part of our friends 
on the other side to purchase Sulgrave Manor, the 
home of the ancestors of Washington. The pilgrim- 
age of each succeeding generation of Americans to 
Mount Vernon is a baptism of patriotism; the pil- 
grimage of succeeding peoples from all around the 
world who speak the English language to Sulgrave 
Manor will be a baptism of international and per- 
petual peace. The example of what has resulted 
from the absence of war between the United States 
and Great Britain during these hundred years is the 
greatest argument for world peace. Higher than 
monuments or memorials of any international 
value, or in any permanent form, is the living fruit 
of these amicable relations, the self-governing 
colony of Canada. If there had been war, Canada 
would have been the battle ground and subject to 
all the devastations of the conflict, but upon a 
boundary line of three thousand miles between 
Canada and the United States, there is not a sentry 
or a gun, or on a thousand miles of contiguous inland 
seas a battleship. Canada has in her institutions her 
liberties, her laws, her continental and transconti- 
nental railroads, and in opening her vast territories 
for agriculture, advanced more rapidly in these one 
hundred years than any nation except the United 
States. As Canada grows in population, power, lib- 
erty and beneficence to the world's welfare, each 
succeeding generation will hail her as a resplendent 
monument to our century of peace. 



[351] 



Speech at the Luncheon given to General Thomas 
L. James on His Eighty-third Birthday, Union 
League Club, New York City, March 29, 1914. 

My Friends: 

It is a privilege to be here to-day to join in this 
greeting to our friend, General Thomas L. James. 
We all have birthdays; mighty few have eighty- 
three. I can speak unselfishly of people who have 
reached eighty and passed beyond, because it will 
be four weeks before I arrive at that age. To have 
lived so long, retaining the confidence, respect and 
love of one's associates is a distinction; it indi- 
cates rare qualities of mind, of heart, rare wisdom, 
consideration and charity for others. 

I trust we all went to church this morning. I did 
and heard a most instructive and inspiring sermon 
from my Rector. The preacher always illustrates 
the truth he is enforcing by a human example. Of 
course, it is always the Redeemer, but in addition 
it is an Apostle or a Saint or some eminent citizen. 

We celebrate the birthdays of Washington and 
Lincoln because of the examples which they set and 
the guide that their lives are for posterity. 

I know of no better sermon in this work-a-day 
world, and among those who know him and those 
who will know him when they come to read his 
story, than our friend and guest whose long life has 
been an illustration of the fact that a man can 
be true to his principles, his party, his church and 
his friends and still be more entrenched in the re- 
spect of his fellow citizens. 

[352] 






TRIBUTE TO GEN". THOMAS L. JAMES 

General James was one of the active young men 
in the Republican Party with whom I came in con- 
tact when I stumped the country for Fremont in 
1856, fifty-eight years ago, and he was then giving 
promise of the distinction which he afterwards at- 
tained. He was a country editor working through 
the editorial columns with rare wisdom and effi- 
ciency for the principles which he believed, but he 
also understood his neighborhood. He was the in- 
ventor of the social column in the village newspaper 
and every young man and woman who became en- 
gaged could be sure of a complimentary notice, the 
bride and bridesmaids at the marriage, of a descrip- 
tion of their dresses, all made at home; when they 
took their honeymoon, which in those days was 
never more than a week to some place within 
twenty-five or thirty miles, it received as much pic- 
turesque description as the honeymoon does now 
which charters a yacht and goes around the world. 
It was in this field that Mr. James discovered the 
faculty of imagination, without which he never 
could have made his success. 

When he became Postmaster of New York there 
was no civil service; the doctrine, "To the victor 
belong the spoils," was universally accepted; the 
result was that the General was expected to turn 
everybody out and to appoint in their places the 
friends of the people who had secured him his posi- 
tion. This gave him enormous patronage. It was 
with the pressure then put upon him that he dem- 
onstrated his strength of character, and with the 
opportunities which obliging eminent men gave 
him, his ability to resist temptation. I think he 
was the first of the office holders of the country 
who installed a system of civil service. Of course, 
it was inadequate and primitive, for he had no sup- 

[353] 



OX THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

port from his superiors or from the people, but it 
was the beginning of a great reform in the public 
service of our Government. 

During all my activities in politics, running 
through these fifty-eight years, I have been a per- 
sistent seeker for other people to secure them offices. 
I have placed in the city, State and Government 
employment many thousands of men and some 
women. My intimacy with General James was well 
known and, therefore, I was overrun with people 
who wanted me to ask him to place them in the 
post office. I selected a very worthy man and, 
knowing how unreliable are letters, I went down 
with the applicant. The General received me with 
his accustomed cordiality and expressed his pleas- 
ure in having an opportunity to do me a favor. He 
said, "I will not put your friend on the general list 
because it may be a long time before he would 
be reached, but, turning to his private secretary, 
he directed, "Jones, put Mr. Depew's man on my 
private list." The applicant and I went away joy- 
ous and I undertook the support of himself and his 
family, we both thinking it was only for a few days. 
After a month of waiting, weary on the part of the 
office seeker and expensive to me, we went down 
again. The General called his secretary and said 
to him, "On what list did you put Mr. Depew's 
man?" He said "On your private fist." The Gen- 
eral was indignant, but his secretary winked at me, 
which made me think he was accustomed to that 
kind of abuse, and the General said to the secre- 
tary, "You ought to know better; the list I wanted 
him put on, and I regret if I made a mistake, was 
not my private list, but my special list." "Now," 
he said, rising, which indicated the interview was 
over, "your man is safe." At the end of another 

[354.] 



TEIBTJTE TO GEN. THOMAS L. JAMES 

month the weary office seeker and I called again. 
The General said, "Well, you see my private list 
got so crowded and my special list so full, that I 
had to make another list for intimate friends like 
you and call it my private-special list, consolidat- 
ing the two names; now you are safe with your 
friend on the private-special." 

A few nights afterwards, at a great public ban- 
quet at Delmonico's, the General had a seat of 
honor on the dais and I was a speaker. I made up 
my mind I could add to the gaiety of nations by 
a full and picturesque account of the General's lists, 
special and private and private-special. I had not 
got far when he came over to me and said, 
"Chauncey, for Heaven's sake, stop this racket; you 
will give me away and my scheme will be ruined 
for getting rid of office seekers. If you will stop I 
will appoint your man to-morrow morning." I 
turned my description of the lists into a glowing 
eulogium on the Postmaster of New York, his effi- 
ciency and how he was adding to the comfort of 
his fellow citizens and their business facilities, and 
the next morning my office seeker received his ap- 
pointment and is still in the post office. 

There is another incident which is of historical 
importance. A few of us active workers in the 
Republican Party in New York State were respon- 
sible for the nomination of General Garfield for 
President of the United States. Senator Conkling 
was at that time the dictator of the party in New 
York and the sole dispenser of public patronage. 
This patronage was so large that it made him abso- 
lute in his authority. He was bitterly displeased 
by the nomination of Garfield and refused to sup- 
port him for a long time. His strength was so great 
that unless he did support him, it was feared New 

[355 ] 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF EIGHTY 

York State would be lost. General Grant, who was 
the defeated candidate, with great magnanimity 
came out and traveled the country for Garfield and 
succeeded in making Senator Conkling accompany 
him. Garfield was elected. Senator Conkling de- 
manded of the President the continuance of his 
control over the patronage, which meant the pun- 
ishment of the men who made Garfield President. 
His method was to fight the confirmation by the 
Senate of anybody from New York in the Garfield 
Cabinet, unless selected by himself; then he would 
have in the Cabinet of the President a personal 
and devoted follower who would look after and 
protect this source of the Senator's power. 

The late Whitelaw Reid and myself were in 
Washington to secure, as far as possible, a Cabinet 
which would be loyal to General Garfield and no- 
body else. After Senator Conkling had rejected 
several names suggested by the President, it sud- 
denly occurred to me that there was one man whom 
Senator Conkling could not afford to, and would 
not fight, and that was the Postmaster of New 
York, General Thomas L. James. James was a 
citizen of Utica, Mr. Conkling's own city. He had 
been a devoted friend of Mr. Conkling during the 
whole of Conkling's career and a most efficient one, 
but I knew that if Mr. James entered the Cabinet 
of the President, it would be as a friend as well as 
an adviser of General Garfield, and that he could 
not by any old association be seduced from that 
allegiance. That was his character, but I took into 
account also his blood. He is a Welshman, and 
the peculiarity of a Welshman in a crisis is that he 
has the courage, patience and persistence of General 
Grant and the obstinacy of an army mule. 

General James was appointed, and while Senator 

[356] 



TRIBUTE TO GEN. THOMAS L. JAMES 

Conkling did not approve, he found it impossible 
to fight his confirmation and believed that soon 
he could command his loyalty against the Presi- 
dent. He was mistaken. No member of Garfield's 
Cabinet was truer to him or of greater value to 
him than his Postmaster-General. This appoint- 
ment was the beginning of the fight upon Garfield's 
Administration, which led to Senator Conkling's 
resignation from the Senate and retirement from 
public life, and in the bitter partisanship of the 
time caused a lunatic to assassinate the President. 
Thus was the history of the United States changed. 
The value of any human being is dependent upon 
the atmosphere in which he or she moves and in 
which they have their being. This is not the air 
common to us all, but it is the atmosphere which 
we all create ourselves. It may be so repellent that 
none can breathe it comfortably; it may be so cold 
that all are chilled who come within it, but there 
are many right-minded, right-hearted people whose 
sensibilities are not narrowed by the accidents of 
life, nor their charity dissipated by enmities or be- 
trayals, but who, by their words and actions, spread 
good will and good fellowship all around them. 
The atmosphere of such people communicates to 
other atmospheres, so that whole communities 
share in the blessings which flow from such charac- 
ters. During his long, fruitful and eminently use- 
ful fife an innumerable host have enjoyed and been 
benefited by the atmosphere created by General 
Thomas L. James. 



[357] 



